U.S. TRADE DELEGATION ADDRESSES PIRACY IN CHINA VISIT

Piracy of intellectual property was topic addressed in visit to China last week by Commerce Secy. Donald Evans and Undersecy. Philip Bond, latter said Mon., and could be addressed in continuing dialog being established.

Bond told reporters many executives of 15 high-tech companies on trip addressed issue with Chinese officials, including representatives of Borland, which has found more than 90% of copies of its software in use in China were pirated copies. “China has made dramatic progress in its treatment of intellectual property,” Bond said, but “they still have a long way to go” as far as implementation and enforcement of intellectual property laws are concerned. China is in process of being admitted to World Trade Organization (WTO) and “that will drive the issue forward in China,” Bond said. “They're coming under a rules-based system,” he said of WTO.

China remained among worst violators of intellectual property not only in software but in entertainment products, House subcommittee was told last week. Bond said Commerce Dept.’s Technology Administration, which he heads, had created formal dialog with China’s Ministry of Science & Technology (MOST) that would address numerous IT issues of interest to each nation, such as standards setting. He said those issues still were being worked out, but that dialog would involve quarterly calls between Bond and MOST vice minister in charge of IT. Talks will be wide-ranging in subject matter, Bond promised: “We're going to talk about anything.” Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) Dir. James Rogan told us last week that he was unable to join China trip because of obligations in Washington but felt intellectual property was important part of U.S. agenda with China.

Standards-setting model is different in China from that in U.S. in that companies don’t truly participate there, Bond said, but Chinese officials were eager to learn more about U.S. standards-setting methods and to work to achieve standards compatibility with U.S. National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) Dir. Arden Bement said “80% of world trade is built on standards,” and Administration was optimistic progress would continue to be made with China and other countries in achieving global IT standards in conjunction with American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

Officials Evans and Bond dealt with in China had “a more open and cooperative spirit than I would have expected,” Bond said, and were very much aware of investments in China being made by some companies participating in trip, such as Cisco Systems, IBM, Lucent and Motorola. He said China seemed committed to allowing competition to drive innovation, but pointed out their model was somewhat different in that it involved competition among state-owned industries.