Chinese Firms’ Relationship with Law, Innovation is Showing Signs of Sea Change

In this interview, Erik R. Puknys, managing partner at Finnegan’s Palo Alto office, discusses the changing face of intellectual property (IP) in China. Puknys, who has experience in IP litigation, sees a shift from “Chinese producers defending themselves from claims of infringement by U.S. rights holders, to Chinese firms asserting their own IP rights under U.S. law.” While Puknys acknowledges that the Chinese IP system is not up to U.S. standards, he advises U.S. companies who go into China to protect trade secrets and patent rights under Chinese law. “You’ve got this very educated and very entrepreneurial workface” available in China, Pukynys adds, and U.S. companies “going in there can really take advantage of China in ways that not a lot of them are doing a really good job of.”