Core competitiveness and intellectual property rig

Enterprise core competitiveness and intellectual property rights in the era of knowledge economy, knowledge has become the most important economic resource and the decisive factor of economic growth and development. Steven worman, a former member of the securities and Exchange Commission of the United States during the expansion period, once pointed out that our society has entered the era based on knowledge from the era based on industry. In this society, intellectual property, soft resources and other rapidly growing intangible property constitute the main resources to create wealth. For enterprises, the knowledge economy brings about significant changes in the property structure. The importance of fixed capital and financial capital has given way to the intellectual property owned by enterprises. With the acceleration of economic globalization, knowledge has broken national boundaries and flows around the world, promoting global economic development. Throughout the global economic cooperation, whether in the field of production or trade, whether in the field of trade in goods or services, many are centered on intellectual property rights, namely patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc

today, with the increasingly detailed division of labor in globalization, developed countries, proceeding from their own interests, have transferred some low-end industries with serious environmental pollution and large waste of resources to developing countries, while domestic industries focus on more creative work. This change has gradually formed a pattern that "developed countries export technology and ideas, while developing countries export human resources". Developed countries are increasingly taking "knowledge innovation" as the main source of their economic growth. If these innovative achievements are not effectively protected internationally, the knowledge economy advantages of developed countries will be lost. Therefore, in order to protect their innovative intellectual achievements can be transformed into advantages and profits, developed countries actively form intellectual property advantages from intellectual resource advantages, and form market advantages from intellectual property 1kW advantages. Therefore, in order to safeguard the interests of their advantageous enterprises and industries and consolidate their national core competitiveness, developed countries strive to pursue high-level protection of intellectual property rights in the field of international trade, and use the intellectual property system to escort the development and expansion of their own enterprises. In contrast, how Chinese enterprises, which are still in the initial stage, should respond and rise in the face of the globalized market and the integrated legal rules is a major problem facing China at this stage. The key for Chinese enterprises to fight against foreign enterprises lies in the use of intellectual property rights. As a white paper of the British government points out: the victory or defeat of the competition depends on whether we can make full use of our unique and valuable assets that are difficult to imitate by our competitors, and these assets are the digital seatbelt tension tester we own, which is a kind of intellectual property of the electronic tension tester

I. intellectual property: the core competitiveness of enterprises in the era of knowledge economy

the concept of core competitiveness was first put forward by American scholars prahad and hammer in a paper in Harvard Business Review in 1990. They believe that the competitive advantage of enterprises depends on their competitiveness, which includes many factors, such as the ability to obtain resources, the ability to master an important technology, the ability to create low costs, the ability to develop markets, the ability to build marketing networks, and so on. But not every ability is equally important, and only those abilities that can enable enterprises to maintain long-term competitive advantage, obtain stable excess profits, significantly better than and not easy to be imitated by competitors, continuously improve customer value and enable enterprises to achieve sustainable development are the most critical competitiveness of enterprises, that is, the core competitiveness of enterprises

it is generally believed that the core competitiveness of an enterprise includes the knowledge and skills of its employees, its technological development and innovation capabilities, its management and production and management capabilities, its ability to create and apply brands, and its unique culture and values

under the condition of market economy, the core competitiveness of enterprises is built around the needs of consumers. Among these elements of core competitiveness, technology and brand are the most easily perceived by consumers. For consumers, what they are most concerned about is not the organizational structure and business strategy of a company, but the products it produces, more specifically, the technical content and brand of the products

therefore, the core competitiveness of enterprises is intellectual property

Second, the operation means of intellectual property rights of transnational corporations

since the 1980s, the proportion of knowledge intensive products and services in international trade has increased year by year, involving more and more intellectual property issues. In terms of international market and foreign trade, intellectual property rights control about US $1 trillion of trade in goods and services, and the field of intellectual property rights has become a key battlefield for global enterprise competition. For multinational corporations, the role of intellectual property is reflected in two aspects: first, intellectual property is the primary capital for multinational corporations to invest. The asset composition of an enterprise can often reflect the market competitiveness of the enterprise. In the era of knowledge economy, the heavier the proportion of intangible property with intellectual property as the core in the assets of an enterprise, to some extent, it can be explained that the market competitiveness of the enterprise is stronger. None of the top ten enterprises in the world's top 500 companies is not an enterprise with high-quality intellectual property rights. According to statistics, the development of a new chemical or biological drug requires us $100-600 million and takes 10 years to put into use. However, if the drug is successfully developed, it will bring huge profits to the enterprise. Therefore, in order to occupy the market, multinational companies have taken intellectual property as the most profitable capital. Second, intellectual property is an important tool for multinational companies to compete. In the era of economic globalization, the competition between transnational corporations and between transnational corporations and local companies has gradually turned into the competition of intellectual property rights, and the proportion of knowledge intensive products and services in trade has increased year by year. After China's accession to the WTO, multinational companies have frequently used intellectual property as a weapon to suppress Chinese enterprises. From patent disputes such as DVD to trademark infringement of Toyota v. Geely, although it appears to be an intellectual property infringement dispute, it is essentially a market competition between enterprises. It can be seen that even though multinational companies have the advantages of large enterprise scale, wide sales network and high resource integration rate, they have never given up using the intellectual property system to strengthen their competitive advantage

as the protagonist of international economic and trade activities, transnational corporations have regarded intellectual property as an important part of their business strategy, and fully realize that protecting and utilizing their intellectual property is to maintain and expand their competitive advantage. Therefore, multinational corporations realize the protection of their own intellectual property interests through a variety of ways

1. Build legal "trade barriers" through intellectual property rights

in the international market, multinational companies use their capital and technical advantages to skillfully use intellectual property rules to build new but legal "intellectual property barriers" for Chinese Enterprises: first, the "technical barriers", which affect or even control the standardization work of the international standards organization and integrate technical standards into technical patents, Occupy the high-end location of the industrial chain and obtain high profits, leading to the survival difficulties of Chinese enterprises using foreign technical standards in the international market; The second is "green barrier". That is, we should formulate internationally recognized environmental standards and green standards, and improve the commodity access standards for entering the markets of developed countries, resulting in repeated obstacles in the export of Chinese agricultural and sideline products and electronic products that do not meet the green standards of international certification and lack of export brands with unified quality assurance; The third is "anti counterfeiting barriers". That is, the Customs Measures newly stipulated in the intellectual property agreement will be used to take "anti-counterfeiting" protective measures of sealing up and detaining some Chinese export products that falsely use others' trademarks, trade names and geographical indications. The European Union announced the CR act for lighters in 2002, requiring low-end lighters sold to the European Union market to be installed with safety locks. The technology around this standard has been applied for many patents by companies in developed countries. In order to meet the requirements of the CR act, Chinese enterprises must pay patent royalties, and the entry of their products into the EU market is greatly restricted. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, the countries and regions that are most restricted by technical barriers in China are mainly the European Union, the United States, Japan and South Korea. In 2003, the United States prosecuted a total of 18 intellectual property cases worldwide through article 337, and China accounted for 7 cases. However, at present, the export of high-tech and electromechanical products in China's foreign trade has accounted for more than 50% of the total foreign trade exports. In 2002, 71% of China's export enterprises and 39% of export products were restricted by foreign technical barriers, resulting in losses of up to 17billion US dollars

2. Extending the period of actual benefits of intellectual property rights through technology transfer

due to the imbalance of regional economic development, there are also great differences in the level of demand for consumer goods in different countries. A cutting-edge technology in developed countries may not realize its economic value in developing countries. However, with the improvement of people's living standards in developing countries, the economic value of some technologies will gradually be realized in the region. Generally speaking, multinational companies often export technology through four ways: exporting products, selling patents, cooperating with the government and investing in foreign countries. In fact, these four ways are the process of obtaining higher enterprise competitiveness in the process of output. As for the same technical product, it is more competitive to sell it in a market with a significantly lower technical level. Selling patents to third parties is also a means to extend the actual life of patents. It can be said that technology transfer is the need of multinational companies' global business strategy, and intellectual property strategy is subordinate to and serves this strategy. At the same time, intellectual property can obtain the maximum benefits only in the process of technology transfer. Therefore, multinational companies often take advantage of regional economic differences to earn the maximum possible profits of their intellectual property rights through transnational and cross regional technology transfer

in short, from a worldwide perspective, the overall strategic goal of transnational corporations for the intellectual property system is to use the intellectual property system to enhance their own advantages, and at the same time, influence the development process of the intellectual property system through political, economic and other means, so that the change of the system is conducive to protecting their competitive advantages

III. Chinese enterprises are facing difficulties in intellectual property rights and Countermeasures

1 China, as a member of the world trade organization, must abide by the international obligations stipulated in the intellectual property agreement in the trend of intellectual property integration and internationalization. Therefore, we can no longer complain that the protection level of China's revised legal protection system of intellectual property rights in accordance with the commitment to join the world trade organization is "too high". In an era of globalization, we must participate in competition under unified rules. If we insist on protecting intellectual property rights at the "appropriate" level, it will only lead to "isolation" and "self elimination". Because of this, Chinese enterprises need to recognize the situation, adapt and participate in the competition with foreign enterprises under unified rules. However, Chinese enterprises are obviously ill prepared for this, especially in terms of intellectual property rights. Core technologies and technologies applied by most industries and enterprises in China