Just came across this excellent McKinsey Quarterly article, Protecting Intellectual property in China: Litigation is no substitute for strategy. [link no longer exists] The article is on China Intellectual Property (IP) protection strategies.
I like how this article stresses that legal tactics (such as registering and enforcing your IP and using China-specific contracts to secure your trade secrets) are the “bare minimum of what companies involved with China must do to protect their Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).” The article states that companies should also factor IP protection into their strategic and operational decisions and it gives good examples on how to do this. Perhaps most importantly, it stresses that relying on international litigation to vindicate your IP rights should be a last resort. It even has a nice pyramidal graph, grouping by importance what companies should do to protect their IP in China. Our China IP lawyers love the graph and they’ve been sharing it lately with clients.