* The author wishes to acknowledge the extensive counsel and support of Professor R. Randle Edwards and Mr A. R. Dicks in the preparation of this article.

1. See discussion infra at notes 48–51.Google Scholar

2. This paper will focus on inventions (and inventors) as opposed to innovations (and innovators) because it is this type of activity and this type of person which most commonly fall under patent protection in the west and thus within the scope of intellectual property. The Chinese, on the other hand, in the absence of general sanctions on private property, have tended to use technical innovations synonymously with inventions.Google Scholar

3. See generally Hazard, John N., Communists and Their Law (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1969), pp. 243–68 for a comparative discussion of the concept of intellectual property among the socialist states.Google Scholar

4. Ibid. p. 244 “Regulations on Awards for Inventions” (as adopted on 23 October 1963 at the 136th meeting of the plenary session of the State Council), Jen-min jih-pao (Jen-min), 2 December 1963, in Survey of China Mainland Press (SCMP), No. 3117, 11 December 1963, pp. 6–10.Google Scholar

5. The Chinese Constitution (1954), Article 10.Google Scholar

6. The two other groups are capitalist industrial managers and overseas Chinese investors in China.Google Scholar

7. For a discussion of “model contracts” which may have been used by the Chinese in 1957 to provide for payments to authors, see Tao-tai, Hsia. and Haun, Kathryn A., “Laws of the People's Republic of China on industrial and intellectual property,” Law and Contemporary Problems (Summer–Autumn 1973), p. 274 and pp. 288–90Google Scholar (This article is substantially the same as that appearing in Law and Policy in International Business, Vol. V, No. 737 (1973) written by the same authors). For a general discussion of trademarks in China see idem. pp. 284–88; Randt, Clark. Jr, “Trademark law in the PRC: case fables with morals for western traders,” U.S. China Business Review, Vol. 23, No. 3 (May–June 1975); andGoogle ScholarButler, J. I., “Trademarks in the PRC,” Trademark Reporter, Vol. 65, No. 89 (March–April 1975).Google Scholar

8. See Haun, Hsia., “Laws of the People's Republic of China,” pp. 284–88.Google Scholar

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10. Ibid.

11. Ibid. pp. 5–6.

12. Ibid. p. 6.

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14. “Provisional Regulations Governing Inventions and Patent Rights” (as passed by the Government Administration Council on 11 August 1950 at its 45th administrative meeting) in Chung-hua jen-min kung-ho-kuo fa-ling hui-pien (Collected Laws and Decrees of the People's Republic of China), Vol. 1, pp. 359–62.Google Scholar

15. “Government Administration Council Regulations Governing Awards for Production Related Inventions” (as passed by the Government Administration Council on 11 August 1950 at its 45th administrative meeting) in Chung-hua jen-min kung-ho-kuo fa-ling hui-pien (Collected Laws and Decrees of the People's Republic of China), Vol. 1, pp. 357–58.Google Scholar

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17. Although we cannot be absolutely sure that there was no previous official schedule of remuneration, we might conclude that by 1954, with the increasing socialization of industry in China, inventive activity had sufficiently come under the control of the state to warrant one.Google Scholar

18. “Regulations on Awards for Inventions,” pp. 6–10. “Regulations on Awards for Technical Improvements” (as adopted on 23 October 1963 at the 136th meeting of the plenary session of the State Council), Jen-min, 2 December 1963 in SCMP No. 3117, 11 December 1963, pp. 10–14.Google Scholar

19. Compare “Regulations on Awards for Inventions,” Article 16 with “Provisional Regulations on Awards for Inventions, Technical Improvements and Rationalization Proposals Concerning Production,” Article 7.Google Scholar

20. Ulf, Andefelt, International Patent Legislation and Developing Countries (The Hague: Martinus Mijhoff, 1971), p. 18.Google Scholar

21. Ibid. p. 22.

22. Penrose, Edith, The Economics of the International Patent System (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1951).Google Scholar

23. See Anderfelt., , International Patent Legislation and Developing Countries, and Ayyangar, N. Rajagopala., Report on the Revision of the Patents Law (of India), n.p., 1959.Google Scholar

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25. Ibid. p. 219.

26. Anderson, Wroe, Tepestra, Vern and Shapiro, Stanley (eds), Patents and Progress (Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, 1965), p. xi.Google Scholar

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28. Ibid. One objection to this alternative is the arbitrariness inherent in the registration and awards procedure.

29. Ibid. See also, Frost, George E., “Patent rights and the stimulation of technical change,” in Anderson, et al. (eds), Patents and Progress, p. 61.Google Scholar

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35. Ibid.

36. “Regulations on Awards For Inventions,” Article 23.Google Scholar

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38. Orleans, Leo A., “Research and development in Communist China: mood, management and measurement,” in An Economic Profile of Mainland China, Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, 1967 (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968), p. 563.Google Scholar

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40. Donnithorne, Audrey, China's Economic System (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1967), p. 408; “Science industry cooperation helps Peking facilities,” New China News Agency (NCNA), 2 April 1965.Google Scholar

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45. For a survey of the types of material incentives that have existed in China see Charles Hoffman, Work Incentives, Practices and Policy in the People's Republic of China, 1953–1965 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1967), andGoogle ScholarRiskin, Carl, “Worker's incentives in Chinese industry,” in China: A Reassessment of the Economy (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1975).Google Scholar

46. Hsia and Haun, “Laws of the People's Republic of China,” p. 282.Google Scholar

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48. See e.g. Ch'un-ch'iao, Chang, “On exercising the all-round dictatorship over the bourgeoisie,” Peking Review, 4 April 1975, p. 5, and Yen, Chi, “Ideological weapon for restricting bourgeois right,” Peking Review, 30 May 1975, p. 7.Google Scholar

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50. Ibid.

51. It should be noted that the recent criticism of private ownership of knowledge and its attendant system of material incentives was part of an even larger controversy over how the entire field of scientific research is to be governed. A campaign was recently being waged against the elitist nature of such research, instead, counselling an “open door” policy of integration of the experts with the masses. The direct criticisms of researchers was that they were seeking “personal fame and gain,” reminiscent of the early 1970s. See: “Great mass debate in Chinese scientific technological field,” NCNA, 4 April 1976, p. 6at p. 8; “Link up the station with factories, conduct open door research,” Jen-min, 4 December 1975, in SPRCP, No. 76–3 (1976), p. 157. The recent reemphasis on scientific research has quelled such criticism, however. See infra, note 81.Google Scholar

52. Hazard, Communists and Their Law, p. 199.Google Scholar

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54. Ibid.

55. Hazard, Communists and Their Laws, p. 251.Google Scholar

56. “Regulations on Awards for Inventions,” Article 10.Google Scholar

57. See supra, note 45; Andors, “Revolution and modernization;” and Donnithorne, China's Economic System, p. 212.Google Scholar

58. “Provisional Regulations Governing Inventions and Patent Rights,” Article 1.Google Scholar

59. “Government Administration Council Regulations Governing Awards for Production Related Inventions,” preamble, p. 357.Google Scholar

60. “Provisional Regulations Governing Inventions and Patent Rights,” Articles 4 and 6. For a more comprehensive analysis of the 1950 law, see Hsia and Haun, “Laws of the People's Republic of China,” pp. 278–80.Google Scholar

61. “Provisional Regulations Governing Inventions and Patent Rights,” Article 9.Google Scholar

62. “Provisional Regulations on Awards for Inventions, Technical Improvements, and Rationalization Proposals Concerning Production.”Google Scholar

63. Ibid. Article 1.

64. Ibid. Article 3.

65. Ibid. Article 16.

66. Ibid. Articles 27, 7 and 8. Note: In contrast, awards for technical improvements and rationalization proposals were given only for a one-year period (article 8). The system of instalment payments lends some credence to the theory that awards might be considered as deferred wages.

67. Ibid. Article 17.

68. See supra, notes 4 and 18. For a contemporary theoretical discussion of the 1963 regulations, see Huai, Kuan, “Legal measures for supporting and promoting inventions and technological improvements,” Cheng-fa yen-chiu (Political and Legal Study), No. 3, August 1964.Google Scholar

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72. “Regulations on Awards for Inventions,” Article 17. This is similar to “Provisional Regulations on Awards for Inventions, Technical Improvements and Rationalization Proposals Concerning Production,” Article 9.Google Scholar

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76. See supra, note 65; “Regulations on Awards for Inventions,” Article 16; and “Regulations on Awards for Technical Improvements,” Article 20.Google Scholar

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97. “Regulations on Awards for Technical Improvements,” Article 5.Google Scholar

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100. Ibid.

101. E.g. “Launch scientific research work to stimulate the development of mining production,” Jen-min, 15 March 1973, in SCMP, No. 5342, 27 March 1973, p. 54.Google Scholar

102. There is some indication that withholding of research data, if not inventions, is a problem in China today. See, e.g. “Great mass debate in Chinese scientific technological field,” p. 8.Google Scholar

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