Despite enormous endeavours, combating product imitation has not been successful yet. This paper provides an analysis of the causes of this phenomenon. It concentrates on the People’s Republic of China being the main producer of pirated goods. To start with, the paper shows that the term product piracy is used for almost any imitation of products. On an international level, only products where Intellectual Property Rights exist are consequently protected. However, their effective national enforcement depends on the stage of economic development of a country, which can be seen at the example of the developing country China. Furthermore, the national and international efforts to improve the situation of IPR holders basically fail due to factual circumstances. Therefore, the crucial question is whether there are viable alternatives to the IP System. The paper considers and evaluates proposals which are currently discussed.
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Despite enormous endeavours, combating product imitation has not been successful yet. This paper provides an analysis of the causes of this phenomenon. It concentrates on the People’s Republic of China being the main producer of pirated goods. To start with, the paper shows that the term product piracy is used for almost any imitation of products. On an international level, only products where Intellectual Property Rights exist are consequently protected. However, their effective national enforc...
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