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EPISODE 900: THE STOLEN COMPANY

Recently National Public Radio’s Planet Money aired an extensive radio broadcast entitled “Episode 900: The Stolen Company” about a counterfeiting case involving a US adhesives company, ABRO.  The case occurred over 10 years ago but continues to have meaning today.  Owing to my role at the US Embassy at the time, I was interviewed along with Bill Mansfield, who implemented ABRO’s anti-counterfeiting strategies, ABRO’s executive team, and others.   The Planet Money segment recalls the extreme measures that the counterfeiter undertook as well as Bill Mansfield’s creative countermeasures.  I won’t spoil the show by telling you now.   The case continues to stand for the proposition that it is possible to win complex counterfeiting cases in China.

One of the individuals who was not included in the final broadcast was Jack Chang 张为安.  Jack is a friend and fellow veteran of many anti-counterfeiting campaigns, and he has been particularly active in the Quality Brands Protection Committee (QBPC), an association of foreign-invested enterprises (FIE’s) that work together to improve China’s IP system.  He remembered those early days involving ABRO.  Jack noted the following to me in a recent email exchange regarding ABRO after this program aired:

“1) After the Hunan counterfeiter was arrested in London but managed to return to China, he conducted a press conference blaming on USG and ABRO for cheating and framing him. His story was widely spread in China. Even within QBPC, many Chairs circulated the counterfeiter’s one side story. It was Mark Cohen, whom I checked with and who provided me with ABRO’s story. Mark did not disclose that he was involved in the operation at that time though. After learning that the Hunan counterfeiter was the bad guy, I asked the QBPC Chairs and members not to repeat the counterfeiter’s one side story and they did.

2) I know Bill [Mansfield]  for many years. His drinking tea and presenting appreciation plaques served in fact as an important value that “a U.S. citizen, who was so frustrated with China’s counterfeiting problem, ended up recognizing Chinese authorities’ sense of honor.” … Chinese Customs and Economic Crime Police are the heroes in the minds of many U.S. (European as well) companies. … Having said that, why the western world is still so frustrated? The simple answer is that the magnitude of counterfeit trade is huge and the technology related IP issues have caught almost every western leaders of public and private sectors’ attention.

3) …In terms of fighting counterfeiting trademark and copyright piracy, there is no difference between industries. Pfizer, J&J and many other pharm giants got tremendous support from the Chinese police to conduct serious criminal investigations on counterfeit rings. Our semiconductor members got the support too. The problem was with prosecutors and courts, which believe that IP owners were not the victims of IP crimes … and that paying civil damages would suffice while no need to put people in jail. The Chinese police are on our side. Some procuratorates are too… [I]n terms of fighting counterfeiting, industrial differences is not an issue at all. However, I agree with Mark partially that technology-related IP protection may be a different story. As I said earlier in this email, forced tech transfer is NOT a real issue from the perspective of many QBPC front line IP soldiers. But lack of effective legal framework for trade secret protection, which threatens both foreign and domestic companies, national treatment for FIEs in terms of the implementation of national innovation and technological policies, FIEs’ participation in the national technological standard setting, the harmonization of “Regulations on Administration for Import and Export of Technology Transfer” and the tech transfer section of Contract Law etc. are the real concerned areas of QBPC IP experts. …”

The ABRO case may also have some parallels with the current controversy involving extradition of Meng Wanzhou of Huawei.  In the ABRO case, the Chinese government also reacted strongly to the arrest of Yuan Hongwei, the alleged Hunanese counterfeiter in London, on a writ of extradition to the US.  Ultimately the ABRO case quieted down as the facts became better known.

Jack also graciously noted of my own involvement in the ABRO case: “Without your telling me the ABRO story in the old days, QBPC might have rejected ABRO’s application to join QBPC and the Chinese colleagues might turn their anger to the USG. You probably did not know how critical your contribution was to the QBPC (possibly to China’s anti-counterfeiting momentum). I thank you now!! All the best!”

Thank you Jack, Bill Mansfield, the team at ABRO and NPR and others for working together on this important case and sharing your memories and insights.

 

 

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THE TIER IS REVISED…

After nearly twenty years of advocacy, China has finally revoked certain offensive provisions of the Administration of Technology Import/Export Regulations (“TIER”), effective March 18, 2019.   The decision was made by State Council decision no. 709, paragraph 38 of March 2, 2019,  which provides as follows:

三十八、删去《中华人民共和国技术进出口管理条例》第二十四条第三款、第二十七条、第二十九条。

第四十一条改为第三十九条，修改为：“国务院外经贸主管部门应当自收到本条例第三十八条规定的文件之日起3个工作日内，对技术出口合同进行登记，颁发技术出口合同登记证。

A rough translation is:

38. Delete Article 24, Section 3, Article 27 and Article 29 of the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on the Administration of Import and Export of Technology.

Article 41 shall be changed to Article 39 and revised as follows: “The competent foreign economic and trade department of the State Council shall, within 3 working days from the date of receipt of the documents stipulated by this Article 38  register a technology export contract and issue a technology export contract registration certificate.

The relevant provisions being modified of the TIER, as translated on the WIPO website, are as follows:

24 (3): Where the receiving party to a technology import contract infringes another person’s lawful rights and interests by using the technology supplied by the supplying party, the supplying party shall bear the liability therefore.

27: Within the term of validity of a contract for technology import, an achievement made in improving the technology concerned belongs to the party making the improvement.

Article 29 A technology import contract shall not contain any of the following restrictive clauses:

(1) requiring the receiving party to accept any additional condition unnecessary for the technology import, including buying any unnecessary technology, raw material, product, equipment or service;

(2) requiring the receiving party to pay exploitation fee for a technology when the term of validity of the patent right in which has expired or the patent right of which has been invalidated, or to undertake other relevant obligations;

(3) restricting the receiving party from improving the technology supplied by the supplying party, or restricting the receiving party from using the improved technology;

(4) restricting the receiving party from obtaining technology similar to that supplied by the supplying party from other sources or from obtaining a competing technology;

(5) unduly restricting the receiving party from purchasing raw material, parts and components, products or equipment from other channels or sources;

(6) unduly restricting the quantity, variety, or sales price of the products the receiving party produces; or

(7) unduly restricting the receiving party from utilizing the channel for exporting products manufactured using the imported technology.

This is one of 49 separate legislative provisions being modified by notice 709 of the State Council.

The TIER was itself part of ongoing WTO disputes (DS542, and DS549).  In addition, it was called out by USTR in its 301 Report on China’s forced technology transfer regime .  A panel had recently been composed in the US case against China (DS542).  The State Council has now addressed the most onerous provisions of the TIER by removing those provisions that had most obviously violated China’s National Treatment obligations under TRIPS Article 3, including footnote 3, which addresses discrimination in “the availability, acquisition, scope, maintenance and enforcement of intellectual property rights as well as those matters affecting the use of intellectual property rights.”

The legislation is immediately effective.  However, it does not address contracts that had previously been negotiated under the prior TIER.  Article 84 of China’s Law on Legislation does provide for the possibility of retroactive effect where the new legislation is made in order to better protect the rights of citizens, legal persons and other organizations, and may apply in this circumstance.  It will be up to the courts and/or the State Council to issue necessary interpretative guidance.

Interestingly, China did not take a “phased” or “limited” approach to revoking these terms, such as providing for limiting the application of mandatory provisions to protect smaller businesses or creating a default provision that could be waived in writing.  The Chinese government, to its credit, thus intended to rely solely upon the market and any other general provisions of the Contract Law.  China also did not seek to clarify the relationship between the TIER and China’s Contract Law or Antimonopoly Law, which had overlapping provisions with the TIER, and which should now apply more clearly and equally to foreign and domestic licensors.  However, the TIER provision regarding non-profit oriented technical cooperation, including government to government science and technology cooperation also continues to be in effect.  Specifically, article 2 of the TIER states that the legislation governs “technical cooperation” including “technical services and transfer of technology by other means.” (Art. 2).

It will be interesting to determine if the changes in the TIER have any impact on the manner in which technology is transferred by foreign companies to China, including use of affiliated/subsidiary companies of foreign companies in China to import foreign technology to avoid application of the TIER to technology imports.  The majority of US licensing transactions to China had been through such intermediated/affiliated entities.  After the affiliated licensee takes over the licensing activity of the licensor, any subsequent sub-license was believed to be governed by China’s Contract Law.

The amendment also comes shortly after China passed a new Foreign Investment Law on March 15, 2019, which also purports to address the forced technology transfer problem identified in the Section 301 report.  These legislative efforts thus appear to be part of a package intended to address US concerns.

Blog post by Mark Cohen.  Thanks to Jill Ge of Clifford Chance, Shanghai for pointing out this legislative development to me.  Thanks as well to the many lawyers, companies, officials, judges, and business people over the years who have advocated for revising the TIER and to the State Council for finally undertaking these revisions.

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Rest in Peace, Birch Bayh

Amidst the many articles and radio commentary on the passing of Birch Bayh on March 14, 2019, a liberal Senator from Indiana, few have noted Senator Bayh’s contribution to patent law and none as far as I can tell noted his engagement with Chinese IP officials when he celebrated his 80th birthday at SIPO ion January 22, 2008.

I was privileged to spend that day with Senator Bayh, and to later call up the Senator to see if he was available to meet with the occasional visiting Chinese delegation to Washington, DC to talk about the impact of the Bayh Dole amendment on patent commercialization in the United States.  He generously volunteered his time to meet with delegations, and his wife Kitty was always gracious in fielding my requests, even if I recognized that his advanced age made it difficult for him to travel from his home in eastern Maryland to Washington, DC.

When I told SIPO officials that the day he was lecturing at SIPO was also his birthday, he was surprised to see that by the end of his lecture, there was a birthday cake for him and a crowd of a 100 plus admirers singing “Happy Birthday to you.”  As part of those trips, he also hosted press conferences on the Bayh Dole Act to introduce his perspectives on this groundbreaking legislation, providing for private ownership of IP rights derived from government-funded R&D.  Whenever I talk or lecture about him to students, I still reflect on those visits.

Senator Bayh had many accomplishments that are better known to the average American.  He was justly proud of having authored two constitutional amendments, and of legislation banning sexual discrimination in school athletics (Title IX).  To me however, he was also a reminder of another, more gracious age.  He and his wife were always generous with their time with me.  He came from an age when Democrats worked across the aisle with Republicans in passing key legislation (such as with Senator Dole), and indeed when training and collaboration were key elements of our bilateral IP relationship with China.

My condolences to his family.  I was fortunate to work with someone who gave so much to the American people and to its IP system.  May his memory be a blessing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Upcoming CFIUS and Export Controls Program at Berkeley Law

Practical Issues in CFIUS and Export Controls:
A Discussion Among Practitioners and Users​

The dramatic expansion of the scope of the CFIUS process and its complex interaction with traditional and evolving export regimes pose complex challenges to companies in the United States and throughout the world. This seminar will present practical insights on how to navigate these regimes and their impact on tech innovation and trade. We are expecting a great group of speakers and participants on both topics – watch this website.  There is no charge to attend this program.

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Wednesday, April 10, 2019

3:30 – 5:30 P.M.
(3:00 P.M. Registration)
Clark Kerr Conference Center, Krutch Theater
2601 Warring Street
Berkeley, CA
 

Reception to follow

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Catching up With The Literature on Forced Tech Transfer…

FTT
(from the OECD report, discussed below)

While President Trump has extended the truce on the trade war, academic and business debate around the nature of “forced technology transfer” (FTT) practices in China and appropriate business and legal strategies continues.

A  study last year by Dan Prud’homme and his team, discussed earlier in this blog, was one important empirical effort looking at the nature and consequences of FTT.  Their FTT Strategy & Risk Forecasting Matrix was intended to guide foreign firms to anticipate risks associated with FTT policies and serve as a starting point for understanding how to further quantify or mitigate these risks.  In January 2019, the OECD also released a study on International Technology Transfer policies which cites to the Prud’homme study and further describes FTT, as well as the various international agreements and practices that may constrain it.  Consistent with the approaches of the US and EU in the currently pending WTO case, the study highlights the importance of joint ventures for transfer of technology in China (para. 90), pointing to equity restrictions as one reason for such licensing arrangements.   Because of the high volume of multinational and governments in tech transfer, the OECD reports also underscores the importance of transparency in the tech transfer process to “distinguish[] voluntary  technology transfer from its more constraining variants.” [para. 92].  Predictably, the report also cites to the same provisions cited by the United States and Europe in the pending WTO case against China regarding its FTT polices [para 65].

A timely and business-oriented to FTT was presented by the IP consulting firm Rouse in a highly useful webinar of February 27, 2019, available here.  The speakers, Tim Smith and Chris Bailey, noted that due to the current trade dispute with the US, Chinese prospective JV and business partners are currently “falling over themselves” not to require tech transfer as a condition to a deal.   The speakers also noted that there had been a resurgence of joint ventures in tech-driven deals with China.  In addition, smaller companies have found that it has become more expensive to develop market share in China making a JV more attractive.  Even if a JV is not mandatory, the access to local capital and expertise can be a rationale for forming a JV.  The additional capital may also lead to higher valuations if an IPO exit is contemplated for the joint enterprise.

The speakers noted that Chinese companies are also increasingly more concerned about less traditional factors of a tech transfer such as whether they can scale up quickly using the technology, how they will handle IP infringements in China, and whether the technology can offer an immediate competitive advantage.

Amongst the newly emerging business structures, the speakers also noted that there have also been  an increasing number of offshore joint ventures formed outside of China that then reinvest China.  The Chinese party may also try to take a stake in a foreign party, and then license the technology into China. The Chinese party thereby may become a financial or strategic investor in the foreign partner.  Contrary to the common understanding, the Rouse speakers also underscored that state-owned enterprises are not as “untouchable” in IP or licensing disputes with foreign partners as private companies.  In some cases they may be better targets for litigation, as they may be more concerned about reputational risks from IP law suits than privately-owned companies.

The presenters also noted that there are deals where China is licensing out have become more common, particularly in new technologies such as AI, VR/AR, electric vehicles and battery technologies.  Western businesses are increasingly looking to Chinese businesses for these innovations.

As is evident from the above, the presenters’ viewed the current WTO dispute around the TIER and other concerns over FTT to be “yesterday’s issue” for practitioners and business people.  They also point to the data from recent surveys showing that a minority of US and European Companies have been asked to transfer technologies by their business partners, often as a condition of obtaining market access. However, they also note that companies have long utilized work arounds to the TIER, which has been on the books since 2002.

The Rouse webinar is particularly instructive in documenting the sophistication of Chinese licensees and future licensors.  Of course, the subsistence of a discriminatory provision as “yesterday’s issue” is also not justification for its continued existence.  If anything, it underscores how much of an unncessary, if not counterproductive,  impediment China’s Administration of Technology Import/Export Regulations (TIER) has become.  From a WTO perspective, even if the TIER is often irrelevant to current transactions, the key issue  in WTO jurisprudence is likely to be whether “expectations of the competitive relationship” offer less favorable treatment to a foreign licensor than a domestic Chinese licensor.   Further, the presence of “additional regulatory hurdles”, such as the necessity of using a domestic subsidiary or an offshore joint venture to sub-license a technology due to discriminatory provisions that exist for a foreign licensor,  does not afford a useful justification for a discriminatory provision.  Indeed such additional regulatory hurdles may constitute de jure discriminatory treatment, as was documented in the case the United States brought against the EU regarding its regime for Geographical Indications (See Para. 7.314, WTO Panel Report)  Due to the increasingly sophisticated experience of Chinese companies, including their willingness to contribute capital or participate in complex multinational licensing structures, the webinar ultimately proved to me that the TIER itself has also largely outlived its usefulness in protecting “vulnerable” Chinese licensees.

An important legislative development that also deals with FTT is China’s revised Foreign Investment Law.  The European Union Chamber of Commerce has released its comments on the draft law here. The comments were due February 24, 2019.  This draft law addresses some foreign concerns about FTT involving foreign investments in China.  The EU’s comments on the FTT provision are as follows:

“Article 22 explicitly prohibits administrative organs and their staff from using administrative means to force the transfer of technology, which echoes the language used in other high-profile policies that have been released in recent years, most notably State Council Document No. 19 (2018). However, this leaves open the possibility for any non-administrative body to use any other means to compel technology transfers. Instead, the Foreign Investment Law should simply prohibit forced technology transfer by any means.”

I personally believe that the language of the draft law, by itself, is insufficient. Other observers, such as Rouse in its webinar, have noted that other incentives to FTT remain, including restrictions arising from national security, foreign investment restrictions, Made in China 2025 incentives, data localization requirements, etc.  Moreover, the draft law does not present a clear pathway to present legal challenges to local authorities, and to minimize any possible retribution when a foreign company complains about extortionary practice.  Prior history shows that foreigners are also highly reluctant to bring law suits against the same local governments that may be involved in regulating their investments. One partial solution is for China’s new national appellate IP court to consider taking jurisdiction over these FTT disputes. The Chinese government might also consider other measures such as creating an ombudsman for foreign investors, fast track administrative reconsideration of investment reviews, improvements to trade secret protection and employee mobility rules, and other measures that constrain the ability of local governments or individuals to directly or indirectly encourage a foreign investor to relinquish its technology, whether through legal or illegal means.  As another example, if the Chinese government seriously wants to address the problem of FTT, the theft of trade secrets that is undertaken in “support” of national or local government technology policies might be subject to enhanced penalties.  Moreover, such cases should be adjudicated by courts other than ones located in the jurisdiction where the misappropriation occurred.

Update from February 28, 2019: A second draft of the Foreign Investment Law has been released and made available in English by the NPC observer.  It is available here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How to Measure the Steps to a Binding Truce…

“The real question is so we do a memorandum of understanding, …. How long will that take to put into a final binding contract” (President Trump)

“From now on … we are going to use the term ‘trade agreement’” (Amb. Robert Lighthizer)

 

This week President Trump and Amb. Lighthizer debated whether the administration will be concluding an “Memorandum of Understanding” or a “Trade Agreement” with China to resolve the current trade dispute, as detailed in Bloomberg.   However, both countries cannot enter into treaties or agreements ratified by their legislatures in the short time available to them.  The more meaningful question is not whether an “agreement” is binding, but whether the underlying commitments require actions that are binding.

US-China trade agreements have often had the staying power of the dew on a summer’s rose.  One reason was that the underlying commitments did not require clear, binding legal action.  A good example of such a non-binding commitment was the 2010 JCCT agreement on government procurement of indigenously innovated products:

China and the United States will not adopt or maintain measures that make the location of the development or ownership of intellectual property a direct or indirect condition for eligibility for government procurement preferences for products and services. China and the United States will continue to discuss whether this principle applies to other government measures.

What was the “measure” that China was not supposed to adopt or maintain?  To someone unaware of its background,  it appears that the United States had a similar problem as China.  Furthermore, a US reader may think that we asked China to enact a “law” to address discriminatory government procurement.   Oxford defines “measure” as a “legislative bill.”  By contrast, Chinese legal scholars know the term “measure” as vague and not binding.  As an example: the word “measure” appears 32 times in China’s accession documents to the WTO in a descending hierarchical order as “law regulations and/or [other] measures. ” As an ambiguous term, it could mean either a  type of law or regulation (both of which or binding) or a non-binding administrative rule.

The 2010 commitment predictably  led to problems in implementation by localities who did not believe they were bound by this negative commitment.  As my colleague Stanley Lubman noted in a Wall Street Journal blog in July 2011:

[W]hile government policy on procurement has receded from the original position and “indigenous innovation” has been “delinked” from government procurement requirements, implementation of this shift is problematic because acceptance and commitment by sub-central (provincial and municipal) governments are needed to make it meaningful.

The 2016 JCCT Commitment on innovation of indigenous innovated products attempted to clean up the vague language from the 2010 JCCT by acknowledging issuance of a State Council document was required:

The General Affairs Office of the State Council issued a document recently, requiring all local regions and all agencies to further clean up related measures involving linking the indigenous innovation policy to the provision of government procurement preferences, so as to practically implement the commitment made by the Chinese side.  The U.S. side welcomes this development.

This commitment, in its legal terms, is a vast improvement over the 2010 JCCT commitment. It clarified that the obligation was not a bilateral one.  It also required the State Council, an authoritative agency with the power to bind inferior agencies, to issue a “document” (presumably a regulation in the heirarchy noted above).  Finally, it required local governments to “clean up” conflicting “measures” with an identified offending policy.  Using a high level document to address inferior legislative acts also made the commitment more easily verifiable.

This problem of binding commitmetns and conflicts with local policy is nearly identical to current issues of “forced technology transfer” where local governments may sense that there is currently no national law that doesn’t prohibit them from demanding that foreign technology owners relinquish their rights.  China’s proposed adoption of a Foreign Investment Law that prohibits forced technology transfer would be one positive step in the direction of addressing that issue.  However that law and its enforcers should specifically address contrary policies and incentives that exist throughout the country.  To further ensure enforcement, at a minimum the new national appellate IP court should have original jurisdiction over challenges brought by foreign businesses against these local practices.   The court could provide  transparent, verifiable, professional and fast resolution by accountable authorities independent of direct local influence.

A 2016 GAO report on clean energy cooperation with China provides another example of a meaningless trade commitment.  That reported stated:

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has identified a potential discrepancy between Chinese law and the bilateral U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement upon which the IP Annex to the CERC [Clean Energy Research Center] Protocol is based, according to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officials. These officials stated that the potential discrepancy is related to ownership of any improvements made to IP licensed between U.S. and Chinese entities.

This language underscores the problem that a bilateral MOU or “agreement” may have no legal significance when there is a contrary State Council regulation, namely China’s Administration of Technology Import-Export Regulations (TIER).  The TIER mandates that the Chinese side own any improvements to technology licensed in bilateral science cooperation projects, and is therefore at odds with the inferior negotiated agreement.  This text leaves the dispute open to future diplomacy, which is not a realistic approach for private business disputes.

There are numerous other examples of poor drafting or drafting of IPR commitments that at best would accomplish only short term goals.  USG and Chinese negotiators in their haste to resolve a difficult set of issues should not lose sight that the underlying commitments of any agreement that meaningfully address US concerns must be phrased in terms of legally binding actions.  These legally binding actions must also be durable, and should not be be countermanded by local measures. They should also be easily susceptible to USG verification.

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Upcoming Program on Fashion and IP Law

I will be speaking on February 20, 2019 at Berkeley Law at 12:50 in a Fashion and IP discussion and screening with my former Fordham colleague Prof. Susan Scafidi. We will be screening the recent film Fashion and IP.

The program is free and open to the public.

Fashion and IP Poster - Feb. 20th (1)

 

Here’s a report from last year  of the Council of Fashion Designers of America on the problem of bad faith registrations of trademarks in China which discusses the pervasiveness of the problem, including the costs imposed on small and medium enterprise members, as well as the impact of serial squatters.

This report further underscores the importance of addressing tolerance of bad faith activities in China’s IP regime in current bilateral trade discussions as well as the need to recognize the significant improvements that are being made that have begun to address them.  Amongst the many significant cases addressing bad faith registrations in the clothing sector was the Michael Jordan case in 2016, which was based in part on naming rights and was reported here.  Another significant case from last year involving protection of trademarks and design elements that has significance for the fashion industry was Bayer v. Li Qing, which involved pirating of a Bayer design for its Coppertone lotions for pirate registrations, and Bayer’s assertions of a copyright interest in those designs to defeat the pirate’s assertions of trademark infringement in a declaratory judgment action involving the anti-unfair competition law, trademark and copyright laws.  The case was also notable as the court did not suspend its decisions pending the outcome of trademark invalidity decisions.