Without adequate protection of these valuable assets, many businesses would fail or would find their market capitalization greatly reduced. The importance of the protection of these assets has increased as the importance of the World Wide Web as a sales, marketing, and brand name recognition tool has grown in recent years.
Many businesses today depend on the Web as a crucial component of their survival and success.
Unfortunately, for the most part, IP laws have not been able to keep up with the pace of growth of the Web and protection of IP rights on the Internet has become a major focus for both businesses and legislators world-wide, including China. China as a developing country in transition from communism is still in the formative stages of developing a legal framework to deal with issues relating to protection of private property. A major hurdle to many of these corporations remains the difficulty in navigating and effectively using China's IP system. As the existing legal framework for the protection of IP has been stretched, often uncomfortably, to apply to the Web, the difficulties have been compounded. This article discusses China's current IP laws as they are being applied to the Web, reviews relevant court decisions, analyzes those decisions under current legislation, and comments on recent legislative developments directed at addressing problems brought by the growing presence of the Web in business activities.