Beijing, Washington wrestle over world patent agency
Washington is warning about the prospect of a Chinese national heading up the UN patent agency, saying that putting Beijing in charge of global intellectual property protection would be a "terrible mistake".
"We want a candidate who comes from a country with a history of protecting IP (intellectual property)," US Ambassador Andrew Bremberg said in a recent interview.
"China does not have that history," he said, voicing alarm at the idea of allowing the influential World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo) to be headed by a country where IP theft and counterfeiting are rife.
China meanwhile has accused Washington of turning next week's election to replace Australian Francis Gurry after 12 years at the Wipo helm "into a political game".
Chinese Ambassador Chen Xu told reporters on Wednesday that his country's candidate Wang Binying, who has served as Wipo's deputy chief for a decade, was clearly "the strongest candidate".
But, he said, "we have got the impression that the Americans are trying to do whatever they can and ... they exert pressures (to vote for) anyone but China."
Wang is among six candidates in the running for the post when Gurry steps down in September, with the others coming from Colombia, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Peru and Singapore.
The US has not officially endorsed any of the candidates, but according to diplomatic sources has been putting its weight behind Daren Tang, who currently heads Singapore's intellectual property office.
Washington has meanwhile not been shy about its objection to Wang winning the post.
In an opinion piece published in the Financial Times on Sunday, Peter Navarro who heads a White House office on trade and manufacturing, wrote that "giving control of Wipo to a representative of China would be a terrible mistake."
Chen pointed out that China was one of the world's top patent applicants and insisted that it has "firmly established the concept that protecting intellectual property is protecting innovation."
He slammed the US "attack" as "unfair", adding: "We don't believe it is a constructive approach". (AFP)
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