Yay CyberSitter!

The decision by a small privately held California company, CyberSitter to sue the Chinese governments as well as the electronic giants Sony, Toshiba et al, is to be commended. CyberSitter is the maker of internet anti-porn filtering software, which it says was misappropriated by the Chinese government for its “Green Dam” project. CyberSitter sites violations of trade secrets, copyright and unfair competition. Sounds like a normal day at the office in China to us.

Needless to say, the legal experts have weighed in and claimed that CyberSitter will face significant obstacles in its US case against a foreign government. However, that has not deterred Elliot Gibson, CyberSitter’s attorney. He just doesn’t think you can take “American intellectual property with impunity” if the company is small and unable to go after them.

Well here at Java Jag we’re not licensed to practice law; However, we are entitled to some legal theories that may benefit CyberSitter. If they prevail in the copyright and trade secrets part of the trial and win a judgment or damages against China, they should try to deduct the judgment from the balance of trade flow cash that goes to China. Ideally, they could attach a major manufacturer’s or distributor’s remittances on their way out the door or if that failed, they could attach a portion of China's foreign currency dollar denominated reserves. Kind of like when you steal a plush terrycloth robe from a hotel and they subsequently bill you for it. If the Chinese government is operating as a predatory business, there is no reason that it should be shielded from civil judgments and its reserves immune to attachment.

This may be an uphill battle for CyberSitter, but if we are going to pull China and its manipulated currency and predatory trade practices into the 21st century, it is going to take a lot of little Davids to bring down this Goliath.

Speaking of China policy, once again we must bore the select readers of Java Jag with another scoop announcement. If you read Paul Krugman’s column in the New York Times last week regarding China’s trade imbalance with the US, he uses the word “predatory” and really comes out swinging against China’s business model. This is exactly the concept we used to describe China’s policies on June 8, 2009 in our article Beijing Duck when we said the same thing. Prior to this, no other mainstream economist ever used this word and stated the case against China so intensely. Is Paul Krugman reading Java Jag?