China claims global chip leadership thanks to new legal definition of 'integrated circuits'

China has changed its legal definition of semiconductors. The National Intellectual Property Administration yesterday issued an expert opinion on recent changes to the regulations governing intellectual property laws as applied to chips. That document, attributed to Guo He, from the School of Intellectual Property at the Renmin University of China, notes that laws in place around the world define integrated circuits as semiconductors. Today, photonic integrated devices and quantum chip technology are developing rapidly, and optoelectronic chips are already widely used in some fields," Guo observed, before noting that China's new rules have replaced references to semiconductor integrated circuit" with integrated circuit." Beijing made that change to include chips that include photonic and quantum elements. On the surface, this seems insignificant, as various monolithic integrated circuits worldwide still require semiconductor materials as substrates," Guo wrote, before arguing the significance of the change is that it demonstrates China's attitude towards intellectual property legislation today: we are no longer conservatives in the intellectual property system." That may be a little boastful, as the most current international agreement covering chip design is the World Intellectual Property Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIP), which describes an integrated circuit as a product ... in which the elements, at least one of which is an active element, and some or all of the interconnections are integrally formed in and/or on a piece of material and which is intended to perform an electronic function." The Register can imagine that definition extending to optical and quantum elements. The TRIP agreement's provisions on semiconductors also protect the layout of chips - the proprietary arrangement of elements on a silicon die. That's an important protection because it takes plenty of time and money to create a layout, and copying a layout is a chip design shortcut. The main purpose of China's revised Regulation is to strengthen its own layout protection laws, and thanks to its new definition extend them to chips that include optical or quantum elements. Guo says China's chipmakers need extra intellectual property protection, and that the changed Regulation will help to determine patents and settle disputes about the origin of chip designs. The changed laws therefore have important practical significance for accelerating the construction of a strong intellectual property nation and meeting the needs of high-quality development." That last phrase refers to the Chinese government's policy of developing capabilities in all fields that an advanced nation requires to be globally competitive - including development and manufacturing of semiconductors in all forms. Several Chinese companies - among them Alibaba, Huawei, Cambricon and Loongson - have developed chips that compete strongly with products from US-based rivals. China wants its chipmakers to be strong, so defending them from domestic or foreign copycats makes sense. (R)