First Copy then Innovate: the Chinese National Intellectual Property Strategy

With the entry of China in the WTO, the protection of intellectual property rights began to play a central role in the industrial policy of China. Considering the Chinese legal environment at the time, the most urgent issue was to create infrastructures and standards that were able to protect authors and inventors and to facilitate the exploitation of intellectual property products, namely to develop “strategies”. At the national level the highlight of China’s policy towards intellectual property rights has been the development and adoption of a National Intellectual Property Strategy, formally adopted on 5 June 2008. With this document, for the first time, the State Council has raised the issues on intellectual property to the rank of policies priorities, thus giving precise instructions on what were the positions of the Chinese government on the subject. The present study analyses the structure of the National Intellectual Property Strategy and its problems of implementation within the context of the new approach of the Chinese government: the indigenous innovation, namely the promotion of local innovation products.