China called for patience from the West Tuesday as it seeks to improve intellectual property rights protection, Reuters reported. State Councilor Chen Zhili told an IP forum that the country is committed to stopping infringements of patents, copyrights and other intellectual property but that this would take time. "When many key technologies are in the hands of developed countries, the development of developing countries faces unprecedented pressures," he added. Chen said that China took more than 570,000 patent applications from domestic and foreign sources in 2006, a rise of more than one fifth on the previous year. A coalition of US movie, software, music and book industry groups recently claimed its companies had lost US$2.2 billion in China in 2006 due to piracy. US trade officials have threatened to take action against Beijing on piracy through WTO channels.
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