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An accident has put high-speed rail technology in the spotlight
Yuriko Koike
01 August 2011
Scores of people were killed by the recent crash of two high-speed trains near Wenzhou in Zhejiang province. Even before the accident, the intellectual property dispute between Japan and China over the technology used in China’s new bullet trains was heated. Since the crash, it has come to a boil.
Japan, of course, was the first country to build “bullet” trains, and their safety record is enviable. The Shinkansen “super bullet” train, which was directly affected by Japan’s devastating March earthquake, was able to resume services in April.
Since it began operating between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka in 1964, the Shinkansen has been a vital transport artery in Japan, and has suffered no fatal accidents. Let me repeat: not a single person has died in a Shinkansen accident.
Despite its technological lead and enviable record, Shinkansen trains were not exported overseas for decades. The first such technology transfer was the Taiwan High Speed Rail, which began operating in January 2007. As a result of a renewed emphasis on safety following an earthquake, the Taiwanese authorities decided to use Japanese technology for the rolling stock and a mixture of German and French technology for other facilities and operations.
Today, the great stage for the Shinkansen is China’s vast territory. On June 30, the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway began operating. The rolling stock for China’s CRH380A bullet train is based on technology from Kawasaki Heavy Industries, whereas the German company Siemens provided the technology for the CRH380B.
One reason Japan hesitated to export its high-speed rail technology was revealed by a JR Central Japan Railway official, who wanted to make its provision conditional upon the “country being politically stable and governed by the rule of law”, and highlighted the importance of compliance with enforceable contracts that would guarantee intellectual property rights.
With these reservations in mind, JR East proceeded with the export of Shinkansen technology to China. Unfortunately, those fears have been vindicated. Immediately before the Beijing-Shanghai railway was built, the Chinese Ministry of Railways initiated international patent claims over the technology used in the CRH380A. It is believed that China has now filed for 21 patents under the Patent Co-operation Treaty.
Since 2003, China has filed for 1,902 patents related to high-speed railways. But the 21 recent applications are the first based on Japanese Shinkansen technology.
The content of the patent application will not become clear until the 18 months required for investigation has elapsed. But there is a strong view that the technology under application is an extension of that provided by either Japan or Germany, and the case could lead to a major IP dispute.
Infringement of intellectual property rights by China is one of the most vexing aspects of trade with the Chinese.
The market for Shinkansen technology is growing not only in China, but also in the United States and in emerging-market countries such as Brazil. With demand extremely large, international competition to build high-speed railway networks is becoming intense. And this competition concerns not only technology and speed, but also safety.
So long as protection of intellectual property rights in China is woefully inadequate, the high-speed rail market is likely to remain racked with heated disputes.
In China, the rush to apply for patents is sometimes said to be about saving face with ordinary Chinese, who might well object to buying technology from abroad when China’s government so often lauds home-grown technology. But China will lose even more face if it is shown to have pirated the Shinkansen technology that it now claims as its own.