Is China Systematically Stealing US Intellectual Property?
[Thursday, January 24, 2019 ] The US government recently announced measures to curtail what it believes to be illegal activities by foreign governments to steal intellectual property. Although the announcement does not name any specific country, they use examples from efforts by the Chinese government, strongly pointing towards China as the primary offender. Many of the recommendations in these announcements describe common sense measures to protect confidential proprietary information, however, it is important these measures are properly implemented to weed out the offenders without affecting bonafide collaborations between scientists. China has been long accused of unethical practices regarding intellectual property generated in other countries primarily from the US and Western Europe. Most such efforts involve aggressively hiring scientists of Chinese origin working in the West, back to China, with an idea that these scientists will bring back with them the knowledge and expertise learnt in their Western institutions. Because many scientists hired to China continue to maintain connections with their US peers and alma maters, China gets access to newly developed technologies long after the Chinese scientist left his/her US institute. That China gets an undue advantage via its new recruits has been a common complaint and most practices of Chinese scientists trying to dig critical information from their peers has been considered shady or unethical but so far, the Chinese government was not openly accused of any crime. There have been a few cases where clearly laws were broken, and the offenders penalized but it is generally assumed that many incidences of stolen intellectual property go unpunished. Now the US government, it seems, would like to systematically pursue illegal activities and involve FBI investigations of the accused, a remarkable escalation of terminology with long-term consequences. The first step is to require all US grant applicants to provide detailed records of their interactions with foreign parties, government or otherwise. This would be followed by FBI investigations of all accusations. Last August in an unprecedented move, Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of National Institutes of Health (NIH) wrote a letter to over 10,000 organizations that are recipients of or applicants for NIH grant awards highlighting NIH’s concerns about foreign governments trying to steal US-generated intellectual properties along with a list of measures to address the concerns. This was followed by an Advisory Committee to further investigate the offences and recommend measures. This has already led to a chilling effect among US scientists with collaborations in China or looking for jobs in China. The Chinese government also quickly removed all public references to the program cited in the NIH reports to hide from US investigators. Ownership of intellectual property is a very sensitive topic that requires formal reviews by patent experts and officials to defines authorship and rights. Knowledge sharing is an integral part of scientific discourse, and any discovery or invention is subject to challenge. Concerns about China illegally obtaining technology from other countries are valid, but China has the right to develop its scientific infrastructure like any other country. It is important that these efforts by the US government do not lead to unnecessary harassment of scientists of Chinese origin or for that matter any other scientist looking for global collaboration. This also requires assurances and reciprocative measures by the Chinese government to disallow illegal interactions so science can take its natural course where smart science flourishes no matter where it originated. Is it wishful thinking; maybe not.
|
|