Intellectual property protection China

Clearly, conditions for intellectual property protection and the regulatory environments have much improved as evidenced by the presence of virtually every major Western and Japanese compare in China and India. (49,50) A 2006 report suggested that the CRO market in India for pre-clinical and clinical studies would exceed 1B by 2010 (51). 

The environment for intellectual property protection is still a concern in China. Pharmaceutical companies ve been alarmed by the 2004 legal decision to overturn the Chinese patent for Pfizer s Viagra (sildenafil citrate). This was followed by a case where GlaxoSmithKline stepped back from defending its patent in China for rosiglitazone, the active ingredient of its anti-diabetes drug Avandia. 

Initially, international pharmaceutical companies had been somewhat reluctant to place R D efforts in emerging economies due to worries about their intellectual property enviromnents. A 2005 survey by Ernst and Young of 348 senior industry executives found that respondents did not believe their companies levels of investment would reach 150 million or more by 2010 in China or India (48). At the time, 70% of the smveyed pharmaceutical executives stated that threats to intellectual property posed a business risk in China, with 62% considering patent protection in India an issue. 

Despite the fact that patents have the prime purpose of protecting intellectual property and commercial rights of individual companies or people, and also those of other organizations, they are a very important vehicle for the spread of information. Patents are bought, sold, and licensed to be used by third parties in the same country or in other countries. In the United States alone, every week about 12 new fuel cell patents are issued. About 500 companies are holders of at least one patent in the field (Khan, 2004). The distribution between countries is highly nonuniform. For instance, of the 1582 general fuel cell patents published in the fourth quarter of 2007,51% came from Japan, 15% from the United States, 9% from South Korea, 6% from China, and about 1% from European countries (Butler, 2008b). 

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