Press release, July 26 2005

MIP magazine lists 50 most influential figures in IP

Chinese vice premier Wu Yi, campaigner Ellen t'Hoen of Médecins sans Frontières and Pascal Lamy of the WTO are all featured in a new list of the most influential people in the intellectual property world, published in the July/August issue of Managing Intellectual Property magazine.

The three are among 50 figures from business, government and the law who are included in the third edition of the MIP 50. The list was compiled by Managing Intellectual Property’s journalists and researchers in London, New York and Hong Kong, based on research among IP practitioners worldwide.

The journalists looked for the following qualities: influence beyond a particular geographical region; a far-reaching impact on the business/policy issues associated with IP and not just legal matters; and an influence that extended beyond their immediate job or role. Above all, MIP magazine looked for people who have a big influence now or are likely to do so in the coming year.

Americans are represented more than any other nation, providing 16 of the total 50. These include US Patent and Trademark Office director Jon Dudas, Todd Dickinson of GE and Mitch Bainwol of the Recording Industry Association of America.

China has four representatives on the list: vice premier Wu Yi, Judge Jiang Zhipei, academic Zheng Chengsi and Customs IP chief Li Qunying. Other prominent individuals from the Asia-Pacific region on the list include Justice Pradeep Nandrajog of the Delhi High Court, Andrew Christie of the IP Research Institute of Australia and Katsumi Shinohara, head of the Japanese IP High Court.

Managing Intellectual Property is published monthly by Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC and was founded 15 years ago. It has over 10,000 readers worldwide, consisting primarily of IP specialists working in industry and law firms.

For more information, and to see more details of all those listed, visit the website www.managingip.com or contact:

Editor (London): James Nurton

+44 20 7779 8685

Email: JNurton@managingip.com

US editor (New York): Sam Mamudi

+1 212 224 3542

Email: SMamudi@euromoneyny.com

Asia editor (Hong Kong): Emma Barraclough

+852 2842 6944

Email: mailto:emma.barraclough@euromoneyasia.com

The MIP 50 (in alphabetical order with Asian and Australasian representatives highlighted)

Mitch Bainwol, Recording Industry Association of America

Gerhard Bauer, DaimlerChrysler

Wubbo de Boer, OHIM

Joachim Bornkamm, Judge

John Call, 8 New Square

Andrew Christie, IP Research Institute of Australia

Todd Dickinson, GE

Jon Dudas, USPTO

James Dyson, Inventor

Karl-Heinz Fezer, University of Konstanz

Tove Graulund, MARQUES

Justice William Gummow, Australian High Court

Anne Gundelfinger, Intel

Francis Gurry, WIPO

Orrin Hatch, Senate IP Subcommittee

Richard Heath, Unilever

Ellen t'Hoen, Médecins sans Frontières

Lord Hoffmann, House of Lords

IP Kat, Website founded by Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon

Adam Jaffe, professor, Brandeis University

Jiang Zhipei, Supreme People's Court

Ursula Kinkeldey, EPO

Mike Kirk, AIPLA

Stephen Koplan, International Trade Commission

Pascal Lamy, WTO director general-elect

Michael Leathes, Batmark

Josh Lerner, professor, Harvard Business School

Li Qunying, China Customs

Paul Maier, OHIM

RA Mashelkar, CISR

Charlie McCreevy, EU Commissioner

Chief Judge Michel, US Federal Circuit

Florian Müller, Open source campaigner

Justice Pradeep Nandrajog, Delhi High Court

Erik Nooteboom, European Commission

Ulf Petrusson, Gothenburg Center for Intellectual Property Studies

Marshall Phelps, Microsoft

Alain Pompidou, EPO

Ernesto Rubio, WIPO

Kyle Sampson, Department of Justice

James Sensenbrenner, House Judiciary Committee

Katsumi Shinohara, IP High Court

Lamar Smith, House IP subcommittee

Jim Stallings, IBM

Joseph Straus, Max Planck Institute

Thierry Sueur, Air Liquide

Bo Vesterdorf, Court of First Instance

Herb Wamsley, Intellectual Property Owners Association

Wu Yi, Chinese vice-premier

Zheng Chengsi, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

This is what we said about the four Chinese people included in the list:

Wu Yi

Chinese vice-premier

Chinese vice-premier Wu Yi has an important year ahead of her, defending the country's efforts to improve IP enforcement and spearheading a group set up to develop a coherent home-grown IP strategy. With the US making increasingly strident noises about bringing a WTO complaint over China's IP record, Wu Yi has to deliver. But she could find that China's bargaining power over IP could be greater given the US's concerns about being swamped by Chinese textiles after a global quota system was phased out earlier this year. Despite pronouncements by Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez on a recent visit to Beijing that "we don't believe that something as fundamental as IPR needs to be negotiated," there may have been a subtle change in China's ability to resist US pressure over fakes.

Jiang Zhipei

Supreme People's Court

As Chief Justice of the Intellectual Property Rights Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court, Judge Jiang Zhipei has overseen the drafting of a series of judicial rulings issued by the top court on the way lower courts should interpret China's civil IP laws and handle cases. After China's IP legal regime was overhauled in preparation for WTO membership, Judge Jiang provided guidance on a range of IP issues from patent, trade mark and copyright to the way disputes over domain names should be dealt with. More recently, he played a role in drafting the important and long-awaited judicial guidelines on the thresholds for bringing criminal actions in IP infringement cases. The guidelines, which vice-premier Wu Yi promised US officials would be in place by the end of 2004, duly came into force on December 22. In addition to his judicial role, Judge Jiang is an exponent of the value of IP rights and their protection. He has his own legal website where he posts copies of important judicial decisions in English and Chinese and responds to readers' IP law queries. He is a prolific conference speaker and author.

Zheng Chengsi

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

China's most prolific IP law academic, Zheng Chengsi is a senior research fellow at the country's leading legislative think tank - the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), part time professor at Beijing University, an arbitrator at WIPO's arbitration centre and a member of the law committee of the National People's Congress.

He played a key role in drafting and amending China's Copyright Law, Trade Secret Law and Trade Mark Law, led work writing the IP chapter of China's Civil Code and last year advised the team of judges and prosecutors who drafted long-awaited judicial guidelines on the thresholds for bringing criminal actions in IP infringement cases.

Zheng himself hit the headlines earlier this year when he brought a lawsuit against a Beijing-based company for selling unauthorized digital versions of his books on its website. As if proof were needed of the gall of Chinese copiers, of the eight books on offer, seven dealt with piracy and copyright law issues and one was entitled Knowing the Enemy and Yourself; Winning the Intellectual Property War. But this was one IP war that Zheng won: earlier this year a Beijing court ordered the defendant to hand over Rmb56,500 ($6,800) and apologize to the professor.

Li Qunying

China Customs

Li Qunying is one of a new breed of young, dynamic Chinese IP technocrats whose work makes a very practical difference to IP owners. At just 45, Li is in charge of the IP division of China Customs' policy and public affairs department, a group at both the metaphorical and genuine frontline of the battle against the export of fakes being churned out by an ever-growing number of Chinese factories. New regulations introduced last year strengthened Customs' hand against counterfeiters, and although some foreign IP owners grumbled that they still left loopholes for clever exporters to exploit, the measures were partly responsible for a 30% upsurge in the number of seizures of infringing goods at China's borders last year. Li Qunying was heavily involved in consulting with industry associations and the legal profession over the new regulations, as well as overseeing their implementation. An increasingly familiar figure on the international Customs circuit, Li played a key role in sponsoring the World Customs Organization regional seminar on IP rights in Shanghai last year, and he is developing closer links with counterparts in the EU, UK, US and Hong Kong to boost Customs cooperation.

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