Piracy on the agenda at NZ-China talks

As negotiations with China on a bilateral free trade agreement get down to the nitty gritty, the protection of intellectual property is on the agenda.

The sixth round of talks in Beijing last month ranged across intellectual property, rules of origin, technical barriers to trade, trade in services, investment, competition policy and government procurement.

Intellectual property is one of the areas where the business community sees more downside risk than upside potential. The concern is that while China's laws on the protection of IP may be up to the mark, the enforcement of them is not.

It is also an area where the precedent-setting element of the talks - the first China has embarked on with a developed country - is especially relevant, given concerns in the United States and Europe over piracy.

The New Zealand approach tends to be to rely on the World Trade Organisation's Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property agreement as providing a balance between the rights of IP owners and users.

The negotiating objective is likely to be some sort of mechanism which can be used in a dispute.