Ross's Question To Business Leader About Alleged Chinese Copyright Theft Leads To Shock Story

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During a House Judiciary Committee hearing in July, Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC) asked Bradford Muller, Senior Vice President of Charlotte Pipe and Foundry, about an alleged incident where a Chinese company stole his company's branding.

Transcript

00:00There's a first. We're getting our time back. I thank the gentleman from Virginia and I go to

00:05the gentlelady from North Carolina for her five minutes, Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and

00:10the ranking member for holding this hearing and thank you to all of our witnesses for testifying

00:15today. I am going to focus most of my questions for Mr. Mueller because we are bipartisan

00:22cheerleaders for North Carolina and our businesses. I also want to thank Mr. Mueller

00:28for your testimony, your ideas about what Congress can do better, but also for your service to this

00:36country and in particular at the beginning of your service working for USAID. We know how important

00:43foreign relations are. So you told us that Charlotte Pipe has filed multiple claims against Chinese

00:52litigants at the International Trade Commission and that Chinese companies clearly have been dumping

01:00products at anti-competitive low prices. I participated with our North Carolina Secretary of State at a North

01:06Carolina Chamber event and it can actually just devastate a small company that doesn't have the

01:13resources that you do. How much time and money has your company invested in filing these multiple

01:21anti-dumping suits at the ITC? Well, I mentioned previously in my testimony, it's almost seven

01:27million dollars of our own money. And another way to answer your question, I was hired by Charlotte

01:34Pipe and Foundry 23 years ago to run the marketing department, to be the vice president of marketing,

01:40which I did for a number of years. But in 2006, I took on a government affairs role and kind of wore

01:47two hats at Charlotte Pipe. In the last five years, I've been working exclusively on government affairs.

01:54So my time and salary has been dedicated to trying to work through these issues, both at the state level

02:01and at the federal level. And it continues to occupy, I joke that I shed half my job and I'm twice as busy.

02:09So and small businesses simply couldn't afford to have that kind of advocacy. No. And in fact,

02:15you know, I also have represented the American Foundry Society. They they have a thousand corporate

02:22members foundries throughout the United States, steel, aluminum and cast iron. 80 percent of those

02:28foundries are small businesses, 100 people or less. They don't have the resources to fight like we do.

02:34And many of them are going out of business. 20 years ago, there were 2000 foundries in America

02:41and we're down to about 1700. And these are vital for national security. You can't make tanks or planes

02:48or ships without foundries, steel, cast iron, aluminum foundries. Well, thank you for also those

02:54small business. Charlotte Pipe discovered that a Chinese manufacturer had stolen your name,

03:01trademark and logo and was using it to sell unaffiliated products in East Asia. Since then,

03:08you filed trademark infringement claims in both China and Singapore. Can you tell us the status

03:14of those claims? Yes. Thank you for that question. I did testify on the Senate side before Senator Tillis

03:20and his intellectual property subcommittee on this topic. We only discovered by accident that China

03:28had stolen our brand identity and was going to market in Southeast Asia as Charlotte Pipe and Foundry.

03:34There's a building in Shanghai with our logo on the side. And a gentleman was passing out Charlotte

03:41Pipe business cards at a trade show in Singapore. That's how we discovered the theft. We filed to get

03:48our IP back in Singapore. We lost, but then won on appeal. We also had to hire a Chinese law firm

03:56at great expense to fight for our IP to get it back in China. And that has stalled in the courts of

04:05Beijing. No decision has been made, but the case has basically gone cold. We can't get any information

04:12from the Chinese government, from our Chinese law firm as to the status of that case. And so we're,

04:19and we know they're still going to market on Chinese websites. You can still see that they're

04:26going to market as Charlotte Pipe. Yeah. And just to, not to be too repetitive, but when I went to this

04:33North Carolina Chamber event, they brought in two small businesses that have experienced similar

04:38kinds of appropriation of their intellectual property. And those small businesses simply do

04:44not have anybody who can stand up for them. So they either have to move on or they have to,

04:51you know, find some other way. And so I want to thank you for suggesting some very concrete

04:57bipartisan steps we can take to help right these wrongs. Thank you for your testimony. I yield back.

05:02I thank the gentlelady. We now go to the gentleman from California.

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