Study Of The Legal Issues Of International Technology Transfer In Terms Of The Feedback

A grantback is an arrangement under which one party agrees to extend to the other the right to use the improvements to the licensed technology. In the course of technology transfer, either of the parties may make improvements to the licensed technology, which as a result will put the other party at risk. The licensor will often consider using grantbacks to reduce the risk as well as maintaining technological superiority and technical monopoly in the market and excluding other competitors from the market. On the one hand, grant-backs can inspire the licensor to license technology, promoting the optimal allocation of resources; on the other hand, it would reduce the licensee's incentives to engage in research and development and thereby limit rivalry in innovation markets.Chinese enterprises, lacking self-protection consciousness and a strategic mind, tend to accept the unequal agreements on the improvements to the licensed technology, which will put them at a distinct disadvantage and even pose a threat to the development of relevant industries in China.As far as China's contemporary laws regarding the international technology transfer are concerned, there are no systematic regulations in this field and no certain legal consequences, which limit its role in regulating the restrictive business practices in the technology transfer. Through the comparative analysis on the regulation on the grantbacks in the U.S., EU and Japan, this paper aims at raising some suggestions in the respect in the hope of ensuring Chinese enterprises' interests in the international technology transfer and building a new order in the technical market.A grantback is a most complex issue in itself. It can promote innovation in the first place and promote the subsequent licensing of the results of the innovation. It may adversely affect competition, however, if it substantially reduces the licensee's incentives to engage in research and development. So we should take an active attitude and flexible strategies towards grantbacks. In dealing with grantbacks the national conditions should be taken into account, only in that case can grantbacks do good to improving our innovative ability.