Hong Kong Is Not The Same As China

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Hong Kong Is Not The Same As China

How do the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong

relate to each other regarding IPRs

Hong Kong has been part of the People's Republic of China

(PRC) since 1997. But the former British crown colony has a very

different and nearly autonomous jurisdiction from its motherland.

How do the PRC and Hong Kong relate to each other in regard to the

protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights

(IPR)?

United but different

On 19 December 1984 the governments of the PRC and the United

Kingdom signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question

of Hong Kong1. The PRC and the United Kingdom declared

together that under the principle of "One Country, Two

Systems", Hong Kong would keep its capitalist system and

retain its own laws and a high degree of autonomy for 50 years.

These policies are codified in the Basic Law2 that came

into effect on 1 July 1997. As of that moment Hong Kong would be

called a Special Administrative Region of the PRC. The Basic Law is

a kind of mini-constitution of Hong Kong, on which all legislation

of Hong Kong is based.

(In)dependent jurisdiction

IPR has been dominated by the territoriality

principle3. This means that the territorial scope of any

IP law of a jurisdiction shall be limited to the border of that

jurisdiction.

Therefore, if one has registered a trademark or design-patent,

invention-patent or utility-patent in the PRC it does not mean that

one has registered a trademark, industrial design, pat...

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