At a forum on Intellectual Property Rights in Higher Education, Professor Zheng Shengli, dean of the IPR school of Peking University, made the claim that by the year 2010 China will need between 55,000 to 60,000 IPR experts. Professor Zheng called on the universities of China to open IPR departments to try and meet the demand.

There were 3.284 million scientific personnel nationwide in 2004, and correspondingly at least 32,800 IPR professionals were needed, he said
However, only about 3,000 IPR professionals had been turned out by universities over the past 10 or more years because universities have been slow to teach the subject, Zheng said.

“The shortage of IPR professionals will hamper the development of IPR protection, which will consequently slow down the progress in scientific and other related research areas,” said Xie Xiaoyong, development director of Research and Development Center of the State Intellectual Property Office, which was the co-organizer of the forum.

Renmin University was the first to begin teaching IPR in 1986, at the Intellectual Property Teaching and Research Center. Now 18 other universities have similar programs.

If anyone knows about quality the quality of Chinese Law schools in this regard I would be interested to hear it. Am I the only one who thinks that more IPR professionals doesn’t necessarily equal better protection or enforcement?

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