China claims global chip leadership thanks to new legal definition of 'integrated circuits'
Beijing's new rules also protect against copying local chip designs
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...
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