我按:一位在欧洲做知识产权研究的朋友发给我一些有关中国知识产权执法的问题,以下选取其中一些贴出来。为了方便阅读,他的问题和我的回答都是中英双语的。
Note: A friend doing research in Europe sent me some questions on Chinese IP implementation. Here are some selected answers. To facilitate reading, both his questions and my answers are bilingual here.
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1. It is in many occasions argued that the confucian philosophy and its impact on the Chinese culture is one of the major factors that IPRs in China are so hard to implement. This doctrine argues that if one want to achieve excellence, he must imitate the works of the one who is doing the best work in that specific field. What are your views on this explanation on IPRs infringements?
很多人认为儒家哲学及其对中国文化的影响是知识产权难以在中国得到保障的原因之一。因为儒家哲学中认为,如果一个人希望成功,他就应当模仿他的行业中最优秀的人的作品。对这一观点,你怎么看?
From my experience, confusian philosophy can be a reason on why the contemporary IP law did not emerged in China but in western world, nevertheless it is hard to say that Confucianism is of a mjor factor affecting the implementation of Chinese IP Law. Although Confucianism did agree with the doctine you mentioned, it is a world wide accepted view but not only in Chinese philosophy. The international IP regime does not refuse the imitation of the best work but only prohibit those unlawful imitation. Imputing the pervasive IP infringements to the confucianism needs more empirical evidences.
从我了解的情况看,儒家哲学可以被作为回答“中国为什么没有产生现代知识产权法”的一个原因,但没有充足的证据证明:“儒家哲学是影响中国知识产权法律执行的一个主要原因”。儒家思想中的确包含您所说的观念,但这种观念不仅在中国,而是在全世界都是存在的。国际知识产权体制并不拒绝对优秀知识产品的模仿,而只是禁止那些非法的模仿行为。将知识产权侵权行为的普遍存在归咎于儒家思想的观点,需要更多的实证研究资料来支撑。
2. The communist heritage is also one of the common explanations why the Chinese have such a hard time to cope with western views on IPRs. (The name of the Chinese Communist Party in chinese, Gong Chan Dang = the public property party). What are your views on this ideological explanation?
人们普遍认为共产主义思想是另一个令中国难以接受西方观念下的知识产权的原因(共产党的名字就蕴涵着“公共财产”的意思)。你对这种意识形态角度的解释怎么看?
Communist ideology comes from western world also. It is too simplified to illustrate communism by its name directly. In my knowledge, the classical communist ideology that affected Chinese regime composed of three branches: dialectical materialism philosophy, Marxism political economy and Leninism. Chinese communist party claimed that it has developed them in the practice of Chinese revolution and construction. There might be some slogans, theories and regulations before 1980s are expressed anti-IPRs, but we never know whether they generally come from communism or not if we do not analize them with the social background at the time specifically.
共产主义意识形态也来源于西方。用它的名字来解释共产主义的想法过于简单化了。从我的知识来看,共产主义包括三个部分,辩证唯物主义哲学、马克思主义政治经济学和列宁主义。中国共产党认为其在中国的革命和建设中发展了这些理论。在1980年代以前,的确可能有一些口号、理论和制度是反知识产权的,但如果不根据当时的社会背景进行具体分析,我们很难笼统地说这些东西是否来源于共产主义。
3. The Chinese often claim that they take the problem seriously, and do all within their power to crack down on piracy. Is this in your view true? What could they do more?
中国人(在国际谈判中)常常声称他们已经对(知识产权)问题十分重视,(政府)使用了权力范围内的所有能力去打击盗版。你认为这是真的吗?他们还可以做哪些?
Yes, as to the piracy (if we distinct the piracy from the infringement), I think the administrative orgnization has tried them best in cracking down on piracy. The problem is: the standards are often too strict (or too inefficient or unreasonable in their legislative technique) to be implemented. So the public organizations can only choose some cases to investigate and punish. This is a tragic situation to the rule of law. Hence what could the Chinese authrities should do are mainly on reviewing the exsiting regulations and policies and improving the legislative techniques, but not simply promulgate new regulations which may sounds advanced. Release the unecessary burdens to the entities in ecnomic practice should be of another focus.
如果我们把盗版和侵权分开理解的话,我认为行政机关已经尽力地反盗版了。问题在于:法律所规定的标准往往太严格(或在立法技巧方面规定得太没有效率或缺乏逻辑性),以至于人们都很难达到法律的要求。因此,公权力机构就只能选择性地执法和处罚。这是对法治的损害。所以,中国应该着重检讨既存的法律规则和政策,加强其中的法律技术,而非仅仅颁布听上去“先进”新的规则。此外,解除对经济主体的不必要的负担也应成为工作的重点。
4. The U.S. (or Hollywood, Microsoft and the US medical industry) are currently filing a lawsuit against China at the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body, because they feel that China has not done enough on IPR infringements. Do you think that western countries have unrealistic expectations of the Chinese government’s ability to reduce piracy?
与上个问题相关,美国(或者好莱坞、微软和美国制药产业)目前正在WTO对中国进行诉讼。他们认为中国在知识产权制度的执行方面做得不够。你认为西方国家是否对中国政府减少盗版的能力有不现实的估计?
Yes, I agree with this point. Not only China, no government in this world can reduce the piracy soly by promulgating strict laws and punishing those illegal practices. The WTO dispute settlement body is good at solving specific trade disputes but not at improving general systematic situation of a regime.
是的我同意这种说法。不但是中国,世界上没有任何一个国家政府能仅仅通过制定严格的法律和处罚非法行为来减少盗版(及仿冒)行为。WTO争端解决机构对具体的贸易纠纷是有效的,但希望用这种机制去促成一个体制性的、宏观层面的进步是很难的。