When the Chinese government announced in April it was establishing a government-controlled patent-operations fund in April, there were few people besides Asian trade analysts who gave the news much attention.

The Beijing-backed effort, Ruichuan IPR Funds, was seeded with the equivalent of nearly $50 billion to assist in “the development and acquisition of core patents to boost market power and profitability of domestic companies.” On the surface, that could appear to be a good thing, a signal the Chinese are moving toward the West on issues of intellectual-property protection.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net