High-Tech Piracy Atop Lawyers’ China Agenda

It’s often a simple enough business when countries trade goods back and forth. But when one of those countries is China--where the very notion of patent protections is exotic--and the goods are computers and other high-tech products, the business can be anything but simple.

To enhance East-West understanding on high-tech trade issues, such as piracy of U.S. technology, a group of 34 lawyers will travel to China this week for 11 days of meetings with officials of China’s Ministry of Justice, bar association, trade agencies and other groups.

“From my point of view, this is a chance to get a foot in the door toward understanding what goes on there,” said Michael M. Krieger, a Los Angeles attorney and specialist in computer science who is going on the trip.

The trip is being arranged by the People to People program, an organization launched by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 to foster understanding between cultures.

Although China remains poor by Western standards, its economy is growing, along with its desire for Western products. What’s more, the country shows signs of a technological awakening. Chinese law, however, offers little in the way of patent and copyright protections for intellectual property that are taken for granted in most industrial nations.

Free Ride From IBM

A few years ago, for example, China unveiled a new line of “Great Wall” computers that featured software copied from IBM. The Great Wall computers are just one in a series of U.S.-researched products that have been copied and marketed by less developed countries.

“They (the Chinese) didn’t have to pay for the development,” observed Michael Scott, a Los Angeles attorney who is leading the delegation from the United States, Canada and Europe. “They’re basically getting a free ride from IBM.”

And that might lead one to wonder what the Chinese hope to gain from the coming trip. According to Scott, Chinese officials wish to learn how more advanced nations view a variety of high-tech issues--even if China so far has been more inclined to imitate the products of the West than the policies.

“They (the Chinese) want to go from an agrarian economy to a post-industrial economy in one generation,” explained Scott, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Computer Law in Los Angeles and a former software engineer. “They’re anxious to have Westerners come over and get them up to date on the status of things in the world. Then they’ll make their own decisions.”

Some Programs Not Relevant

While Western firms worry about losing technology to copycats from less advanced countries, Scott pointed out that such concerns should only go so far when it comes to China. The reason: Many of the popular software programs used in American-style, capitalist accounting have little relevance to communist bookkeepers. “They don’t conduct their business that way, so there’s little incentive for them to pirate what’s out there,” he noted.

The lawyers, who leave Wednesday, also have scheduled shorter stays in Japan and Hong Kong before returning to the United States on April 26. As in China, the goal of the visits is to learn about doing business in countries where the rules are different from those in the United States. And the chance to stumble upon a useful contact or two is not without its appeal--which may help explain why the travelers are plunking down $5,050 each from their own pockets for the Far East journey.

“Just finding out who you want to deal with, who you can trust, who will do what they say they can do is not an easy thing,” Krieger said. “The last thing you want to have to do is collect damages in court. You want the deal to go right from the beginning.”