China’s intellectual property rights (IPR) authorities need a better understanding of the legal framework that is necessary for IPR protection and the role of each agency within the framework.

• China’s lawmaking bodies must ensure that responsibility for IPR pro-tection is allocated among government agencies in an organized and principled way. Officials in the courts and administrative units charged with IPR protection must establish more effective communications procedures among each other.
• Today, the jurisdictions of the administrative agencies responsible for IPR protection and the civil and criminal courts are uncertain, as are their rules of procedure. China should make its IPR-related admin-istrative and judicial processes uniform, consistent and transparent.

Chinese authorities must enforce their IPR protection laws aggressively.

• More resources must be devoted to IPR enforcement in China. The threat of enforcement must be real, and the criminal penalties must be significant enough to deter potential counterfeiters. Counterfeiters view present-day administrative fines as the mere costs of doing business.
• Sustained local enforcement of IPR rules is essential. Centrally mandated, sporadic and anticounterfeiting campaigns have been unsuccessful. Local authorities need to make IPR enforcement a priority, rather than looking the other way or, in some cases, accepting bribes from counterfeiters.
• China is taking some action. The Supreme Court and the Supreme Procuratorate are drafting new rules for criminal IPR cases, which, among other things, will lower the threshold necessary to prosecute criminal IPR violations.

The U.S. government must work with Chinese officials to help improve China’s IPR protection issues.

• The U.S. government should continue bilateral IPR discussions in the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, as well as in the Chinese Leading Group on IPR protection.
• The U.S. Departments of Commerce and Justice, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office should con-tinue to host seminars to educate Chinese judges, lawmakers and police on IPR protection.