Joan Porta

Securing IP rights in China has been a priority for companies selling or manufacturing in China due to the country’s singular attitude to intellectual property, which has been much abused. Today 84.5% of counterfeits originate in either China or Hong Kong, and as the world becomes progressively more connected alongside the rise of e-commerce and cross-border exportation capabilities, increasingly there is a need for IP protection strategies of all companies to be adapted to Chinese policies.

Mark Lopreiato, the inventor of the Forearm Forklift, recorded sales of $4 million in 2008 but since then has seen a 30% drop, which he attributes to cheap replicas available on eBay and Amazon. In point of fact, there have been a number of examples of innovative companies suffering from the sale of replicas on Amazon and other e-commerce sites. In extreme cases, global brands like Birkenstock have stopped business with Amazon and other e-commerce retailers altogether. Sustained pressure on e-commerce sites from both professional and governmental bodies have yielded some results in recent years, with almost every major site now offering some level of IP protection tool or process. This also serves the interest of bigger sites as Amazon, eBay and their Chinese counterpart Alibaba are shielded from legal liability, provided they can offer a timely takedown service for IP owners.