From copycat to top cat: Chinese IP talent on the rise

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As China vows to transform its economy with technology and intelligence, the protection of intellectual property has been put as a top priority. In Shenzhen, China’s Silicon Valley, companies have already taken action to be the front runners in the IP industry.

Four years ago, Duan Jianguang, an intellectual property professional, came back from the US to manage the IP department of Mindray Medical International, the largest electronic medical device producer in China and the third-largest player in the global patient monitoring device industry.

CGTN Photo

In the meantime, Mindray’s rapid globalization poses a great challenge in Duan’s job. He said his biggest concern right now is to make sure that “their global competitors cannot use their IP to stop Mindray from doing business.”

Mindray is trying to build a great wall of IP rights with nearly 2,700 granted patents in China and 400 patents in Europe and America.

But in this process, another problem has emerged for Duan – the shortage of qualified IP professionals. According to Duan, firms are increasingly valuing IP and hiring more specialists, so the competition for talent is fierce.

CGTN Photo

IP rights used to be loosely enforced in China. But as the government realized IP protection was critical in achieving the country’s goal of a manufacturing upgrade, it took action, and a whole new industry for IP management has emerged.

In the past, the average fine in IP lawsuits was only around 12,000 US dollars. But now it could be up to 12 million US dollars.

Wang Huotao, a former senior IP manager at Tencent and Huawei, saw the opportunity and founded an IP management firm with venture capital in Shenzhen a year ago.

CGTN Photo

Wang is now cooperating with a bank to develop an insurance policy that can avoid IP risks for those Chinese companies wishing to enter the international market.

“With this insurance, if a company faced a patent lawsuit in the international market, we’ll compensate the lawsuit fee. We expect it’ll be rolled out soon,” Wang said.

Another important task for him is to educate the market. Wang told CGTN that IP rights are a shield, but also an arrow. Chinese firms used to only take patents as defensive measures but IP value can only be realized by active market operations.

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