Business Week describes the American Superconductor case Where China Stole Technology

China’s Sinovel (maker of wind turbines) stole a version of American Superconductors (AMSC) software.

On April 5, AMSC had no choice but to announce that Sinovel — its biggest customer, accounting for more than two-thirds of the company’s $315 million in revenue in 2010 — had stopped making purchases. Investors fled, erasing 40 percent of AMSC’s value in a single day and 84 percent of it by September.

The print version of the Business Week article lists many other cases of Chinese theft of intellectual property.

However, the more common practice is for China to use its position as the largest customer for planes, high speed trains and nuclear reactors to negotiate with companies to require the transfer of technology and rights. China is also able to buy companies and technology such as in solar power and then have capable engineers improve and scale those processes.

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