China is Deadly Serious About Educating NextGen Inventors, Brand Builders and Entrepreneurs

China wants other nations to know it not only has secured many patents and trademarks, it is intent on educating children as young as primary school about the role IP rights play in innovation and brand building, as well as about the critical importance of IP to national economic success.

Dur­ing a national IP edu­ca­tion train­ing pro­gram held by the China National Intel­lec­tual Prop­erty Admin­is­tra­tion (CNIPA), Dang Jiwu, deputy prin­cipal of Xin­ing No 2 Middle School in Qing­hai province, said that “the school has aban­doned the tra­di­tional method of ‘instilling the­or­ies’ and instead incor­por­ated IP ele­ments into every sub­ject and aspect of teach­ing, so that stu­dents will nat­ur­ally develop an IP aware­ness.”

“China has seen remark­able pro­gress in IP edu­ca­tion at primary and middle schools, with an increas­ing aware­ness and a grow­ing diversity in edu­ca­tion con­tent”

Fac­ulty mem­bers have developed a school-based cur­riculum for stu­dents with dif­fer­ent needs. “For junior middle school stu­dents, we con­cen­trate on rais­ing their aware­ness of what intel­lec­tual prop­erty is, enabling them to grasp basic IP con­cepts through edu­ca­tional activ­it­ies,” he Dang Jiwu said.

The report of IP awareness activities comes by way of a China Daily story published in December. China Daily is an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party.

Ramped Up Efforts

While there is likely an element of government encouragement for such IP reports, it is clear that China has ramped up its efforts to educate students about intellectual property and its role in China’s economic success. The goal appears to be recognition for invention, creative expression and recognition of brand value not only for creators and businesses, but for the population in general. Respect for IP rights as potentially monetizable State resources appears to be a goal.

A recent WIPO Pulse Report, “The global IP perception survey,” indicates that positive IP attitudes are ascendant in China and Asia, while they are declining in the U.S. and Western Europe.

The middle school in Qinghai province has estab­lished a prac­tical plat­form, involving soci­et­ies, com­pet­i­tions and work­shops. Its facil­it­ies include an elec­tronic maker work­shop and Lego robot­ics labor­at­ory. These spaces are equipped with pat­ent search data­base ter­min­als, three-dimen­sional print­ers and laser-cut­ting machines, provid­ing hard­ware sup­port for stu­dent innov­a­tion.

Fashion Technology 

Xin­ing is a high-alti­tude city in the Qing­hai-Xiz­ang Plat­eau, where phys­ical activ­ity can be chal­len­ging due to lower oxy­gen levels. The stu­dent Song Yun­yan developed a school uni­form, which can sup­ply oxy­gen through a mini­ature bio-enzyme oxy­gen gen­er­ator embed­ded in the col­lar.

He emphas­ized IP edu­ca­tion must be groun­ded in three pil­lars: the school’s char­ac­ter­ist­ics, regional con­di­tions and an open eco­sys­tem.

“We need to break the bar­ri­ers between cam­pus and soci­ety, enabling IP edu­ca­tion to move bey­ond ‘small classrooms’ and con­nect with ‘a big­ger stage’, and in this way, it can take root, thrive and bear fruit,” Dang said.

“China has seen remark­able pro­gress in IP edu­ca­tion at primary and middle schools, with an increas­ing aware­ness and a grow­ing diversity in edu­ca­tion con­tent,” a CNIPA offi­cial said at the train­ing.

“We need to break the bar­ri­ers between cam­pus and soci­ety, enabling IP edu­ca­tion to move bey­ond ‘small classrooms’ and con­nect with ‘a big­ger stage’, and in this way, it can take root, thrive and bear fruit”

Over the past three years, more than 17,000 full-time and part-time IP teach­ers in primary and sec­ond­ary schools have received train­ing, accord­ing to CNIPA.

An Asian-Watcher’s Perspective

“Every time I visit [Asia], I feel a pang of envy for societies that seem to value education more than America does,” says Nicholas Kristof, multiple Pulitzer Prize winner who has been reporting on Asia for the New York Times since 1984.

“We Americans eagerly invest in our own children’s education,” continues Kristoff, “but we’re less enthusiastic about paying to educate other people’s kids. In Taiwan, by contrast, the constitution stipulated for decades that education, culture and science must account for at least 15 percent of the national budget; a law that updated it mandates that at least 22.5 percent of combined net budget revenues for government at all levels go to education.

In the United States, education has accounted for a bit more than 2 percent of recent federal budgets.

“… maybe we could manage a bit less complacency about educational mediocrity?,” says Kristof. “Maybe we could acknowledge the inequity of local school finance that results in sending rich kids to good schools and poor kids to weak schools?… What if we respected human capital as much as financial capital?”

Lego Supports IP Education in China

Among the most representative companies helping in China with IP education is the Danish toy giant Lego. Since 2019, the company has provided IP lectures and workshops for more than 1,300 students and 600 residents in over 10 Chinese cities, in collaboration with the newspaper China Intellectual Property News.

“Pro­tect­ing trade­marks is not just about pro­tect­ing con­sumer rights but the innov­a­tion capa­city of the soci­ety,” aid Robin Smith, vice-pres­id­ent and gen­eral coun­sel for China and the Asia-Pacific region of Lego Group.

“Through activ­it­ies close to con­sumers’ daily lives, we hope to sup­port the pub­li­city and edu­ca­tion of IP pro­tec­tion, con­trib­ut­ing our efforts to a more favor­able envir­on­ment for innov­a­tion.”

For the full story in China Daily, tap here.

Image source: chinadaily.com