Intellectual property is the cornerstone of value in the modern age. INTA demonstrates and reinforces this reality.
Welcome to our special intellectual property issue, which will be distributed at the annual meeting of the International Trademark Association (INTA). We are proud to be partnering INTA for this pre-eminent event in the global IP calendar.
Our investigations this month first examine the latest developments in IP law and protection in China. Our research has revealed a growing confidence in the court system as a tool for the enforcement of IP rights (see IP battles move to the courts).
Our second feature (see Chinese IP under threat worldwide) looks at the steep learning curve faced by Chinese companies seeking to protect their IP internationally as they venture out and invest overseas for the first time.
The inescapable conclusion to draw from such coverage is that the amount of common ground shared by IP practitioners and their clients inside and outside China continues to grow. Administrative oversight and policies traditionally adopted in the reform-era People’s Republic may, slowly but surely, be giving ground to internationally accepted enforcement mechanisms – with the courts playing a leading role.
And China’s integration into the international legal community is also a theme of this month’s The Four Seas feature (Cross-border investors: do you know your (new) rights?). This article discusses important developments surrounding the suite of bilateral investment treaties China has signed over the last 30 years. Recent pronouncements of arbitration tribunals hearing cases under the treaties seem to offer an extension of the rights and remedies available under what are considered “old-generation” agreements.
China Business Law Journal encourages anything that will narrow the gap between legal practice in China and overseas. Our own small contribution to this endeavour includes our regular Lexicon column (see Shall or must? Words of obligation) – a guide to the knotty issues of language that arise when working across the linguistic divide. This month, we take a fascinating look at words of obligation in English and their equivalents in Chinese – bixu (必须), yingdang (应当), xuyao (需要) and dei (得). We look forward to your feedback.
