For those who missed them, are the video recording to some recent events:

On April 27, 2021 BCLT hosted our third annual “Tech Trade and China” program.   The focus this year was on The Future of Multilateral Approaches to China Tech Policy (total program length about 255 minutes). Here are the links to the individual sessions: Welcoming Comments; Scene Setter – China’s Plans for the Future; Session I: The Role of the WTO and International Organizations in IP and Technology (hosted by Mark Cohen); Session II: Export Controls, Investment Restrictions and Cyber Security (hosted by Phil Rogers); Session III: Finding a Common Denominator with China – Science and Technology Collaboration in Climate Change and Public Health: Opening Remarks & Keynote (Dean Erwin Chemerinsky & Former Governor Jerry Brown), Discussants (hosted by Robert Merges); Post – Luncheon Discussion on Self Strengthening (hosted by Prof. Colleen Chien).

Background: The speakers at each of the sessions were often leaders in the field. The program was co-sponsored by the German Marshall Fund and the Asia Society of Northern California.   For an inspiring presentation on the importance of global cooperation, listen to California Governor Jerry Brown.  Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd opened up the “Self-Strengthening” session.  The program progresses from topics involving multilateral cooperation, unilateral sanctions, addressing global challenges to efforts to strengthen the US innovation ecosystem, including encouraging diversity.  If you are “zoomed-out”, listen to the sessions of greatest interest to you. 

On May 6, 2021, we hosted Quantum Leap: Developments in China’s IP Law Over the Past Two Years .  Here is the event recording (about 90 minutes).  

Background: Each speaker had about 7 minutes to present on developments in patent, pharma-related IP, antitrust and licensing, trademark, copyright, trade secrets, IP enforcement, and challenges facing Chinese companies overseas.   Listen carefully and you may find yourself to be an adequately credible exert on recent developments.  If you only have seven minutes to understand everything, Duncan Willson from USPTO gave a particularly useful summary of enforcement challenges that all foreign rightsholders face in China.

On May 13, 2021, Profs. Merges, Hao and I had a lively talk with Prof. Angela Huyue Zhang regarding her new book Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism How the Rise of China Challenges Global Regulation. Here is the event recording (about 75 mintues).

Background: What distinguished this book talk from other talks Prof. Zhang has recently given is the focus on technology and IP.    Prof. Zhang opened up the talk with a presentation on recent antitrust investigations in China involving Internet platforms.  The discussion delved into  such issues as how Chinese industrial policies and dynamic models of technology competition have presented unique challenges to antitrust enforcement, and the influence exerted by China’s experience of intellectual property on development of its antitrust bureaucracy and policies.

Here are some upcoming programs:

On May 25, 2021, the National Press Club is hosting a discussion on “China’s Threat to US US Intellectual Property”.  I will be joined by former USPTO Director Andre Iancu and  Elaine Wu, Principal Counsel and Director for China at the USPTO.  The description of the program questions “[w]whether the situation [is] as dire as [FBI Director] Wray and others have painted. Have U.S. reporters been too quick to relay cases of misappropriation of U.S. intellectual property — and too slow to report on the victories that U.S. companies have won in courts on their IP challenges? That’s the concern of Mark Cohen of the University of California, Berkeley, who says the Chinese IP threat has been misconstrued.” How much has misleading journalism resulted in misplaced priorities?  Let’s discuss it.

On May 27, Prof. Hao Yuan launches  “Towards a Deeper Understanding; Berkeley Asia IP SEP Talk Series”, in four separate parts. The first session will focus on FRAND methodologies.

On June 7 at 1:45 ET, I will be speaking as part of an IP Watchdog inaugural series “Patent Masters Litigation.” The full program lasts from June 7-10, 2021.  I am on the panel “A Battle for Jurisdiction: Anti-Jurisdiction Lawsuits and the Future of International Comity.”

Also worth noting: the USPTO revised its China IP Toolkit on May 18, 2021.  This is much-improved version of a long-standing effort to get the basics of China’s IP regime out to the general public.   The first “toolkit” on foreign IP was launched at the US Embassy around 2002. This booklet type approach was first launched in 2019.    US Embassies in other countries have also launched their own versions of the IP Toolkit.