Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment signed in Beijing in mid-October an exclusive cooperation agreement with Zoke Culture Group, a Chinese audio and video publisher, with a view to offering DVDs and VCDs of its classic and latest movies to China's home entertainment market through Zoke's extensive network. This can be seen as a new step forward in intellectual property rights (IPR) cooperation between China and the United States.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who was then visiting China, attended the signing ceremony. He said that inter-enterprise cooperation of this kind would become another "strategic weapon" in the two countries' joint fight against piracy.

IPR protection is of rising importance to China-U.S. economic relations. Both sides have reached a consensus that piracy in China not only hurts American companies' interests, but also hinders the further development of bilateral trade.

Chinese Commerce Minster Bo Xilai made it very clear that while China is making great efforts to encourage creativity, the country regards IPR protection as a national strategy. The Ministry of Commerce has set up centers in 50 cities around the country to handle complaints about IPR infringements, which by the end of September had investigated more than 15,600 cases.

In accordance with the Chinese Government's Action Plan on Intellectual Property Protection 2006, released at the beginning of this year, China has already carried out 19 international exchange and cooperation projects, covering IPR legislation, as well as protection of trademarks, copyrights and patents. Seven of the programs are happening between China and the United States. These include China's import of American expertise on the fight against online piracy, the training of law enforcement personnel, and joint studies of the influence of piracy on national security, cultural security and the development of human society.

Dialogue is the best way for Beijing and Washington to solve their disputes regarding IPR protection. According to Gutierrez, the U.S. Government had sent an intellectual property attaché to Beijing and at the beginning of 2007 one more attaché will be dispatched to Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, to strengthen dialogue and cooperation between the two countries.

It must be pointed out that IPR protection is a global concern. According to statistics from the American Film Institute, the United States suffered a loss of $6.1 billion from movie piracy around the world in 2005, of which $240 million was attributed to pirated products in China. That is to say, quite a few countries apart from China have done harm to U.S. movie copyrights. Hence, it is necessary for the United States to protect its intellectual property in a more extensive manner.

The Chinese Government understands clearly that IPR protection is not only compulsory under World Trade Organization rules, but more importantly, it is crucial to China's own development. Therefore, China is stepping up efforts to upgrade its IPR protection system and to formulate relevant laws and regulations, so that the rights will be respected and more effectively protected. The United States' suggestions on how to protect intellectual property rights in China are welcome and it is believed that in the near future the two countries will have more effective cooperation

in this field.