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In the area of cyber security and data protection, the pressure on foreign companies operating in or doing business with China continues to increase: a flood of new laws and regulations increasingly restricts the handling of data and further limits the already narrow entrepreneurial room for action.

In the course of the Chinese government's anti-corruption campaign, the requirements for companies in China have increased significantly. The Criminal Code has been tightened, numerous other laws have been adapted and administrative measures expanded.

Legal requirements for compliance and CSR have become stricter in China, and controls on foreign companies have become more stringent. The cybersecurity law that came into force in June 2017 and the rapidly developing Social Credit System, which forces the disclosure of sensitive data, also continue to challenge international companies.

A foreign company entering the Chinese market does not have to become desperate about the discovery of a Chinese counterfeiters already having registered its trade mark anymore.

Chinese companies industrialize innovation and apply increasingly for high-value patents – at home and also abroad. Foreign companies need to be alert and start accessing this great pool of information for competitive intelligence.

The Chinese IP Offensive is picking up speed. Chinese companies are increasingly moving away from just manufacturing and starting to register patents and export inventions instead of products. The Chinese Patent Office State Intellectual Property Office, along with patent offices around the world, is being inundated with applications from the People's Republic of China – many of them based on ideas lifted from American and European companies.

The infringement of IP is not unique to China, but comes up frequently in discussions about Chinese business. Trade secrets are a particularly sensitive right. In contrast to other kinds of IP, which relate more closely to statutory law, trade secrets are more a creature of jurisprudence.

Foreign demand for Chinese made tools and moulds, even in high-technology and emerging industries, is strong, owing to the local production advantage of very low labour and material costs:

China’s waste industry is going green. From 2011 onwards, the country’s central government will be forcing cities and other communities to build recycling facilities - a drive that it will be underpinning with billions of Yuan.

German enterprise WILO SE is a leading pump and pump systems manufacturer for heating, refrigeration, and air conditioning technology, as well as for water supply, waste water treatment, and sewage disposal worldwide. The company steadily goes after counterfeiters, not only to protect its brand, but, most of all, to keep its promises regarding quality.

The costs of combating counterfeiting are high, ranging between six and eight digit sums depending on the size of the company in question: For management and patent protection, trademarks, copyrights, as well as for infringement suits.