The 2005 Intellectual Property System in Action

The questionnaire and follow-up interviews conducted in 2005-6 included discussion of the effectiveness of the system of intellectual property protection in China according to the experiences of respondents (see Appendix 1 for a copy of the questionnaire used in this study). When respondents were asked to rank the system on a scale from 1 to 6, with 1 representing completely ineffective and 6 representing completely effective, the average rank was 3.3. Unsurprisingly, the system was ranked as neither completely ineffective nor completely effective, with a breakdown of the results shown in Table 6.1.

Furthermore, when asked whether the main cause of any remaining problems in the system at that time was poor legislation, poor enforcement, a combination of both, or neither, of the 44 valid responses collected, poor enforcement was overwhelmingly seen as the main cause. Twenty-five respondents selected poor enforcement as the main cause, with only one choosing poor legislation and a further 16 respondents indicated that both poor legislation and poor enforcement were to blame for any remaining obstacles in the IP system in China. Thus, these responses confirm the overall judgement observed in Chap. 5 that while China’s IP legislation was much improved as a result of WTO accession, problems still remained, particularly in the enforcement of these laws and regulations at that time.

Respondents were also asked if they had experienced any problems with the IP system. Only two respondents answered no, out of a total of 47 valid responses, clearly showing that the system still had problems to resolve. Those 45 respondents who responded that they had experienced problems with the IP system were then asked to rank those problems. On a scale of 1-6, where 1 represented not at all serious and 6 represented extremely serious, the average rank for the problems experienced was 4.02. Thus, most respondents had experienced considerable problems with the post-TRIPS IP system in China. The responses regarding the severity of the problems experienced are detailed in Fig. 6.1.

Table 6.1 Effectiveness of the IP system as ranked by respondents

Fig. 6.1 Severity of problems in the 2005 post-TRIPS IP system as ranked by respondents

As the majority of the respondents ranked the problems they had experienced as at least moderately severe, it is clear that there may have been some problems with the overall effectiveness of the post-TRIPS IP system in China at that time.