Pact sets legal framework for UK-China co-pros

Pact, the UK producers trade association, has established a new legal framework designed to protect the sharing of confidential ideas and intellectual property between UK-Chinese co-production partners.

The new framework is designed to foster deeper collaboration between British and Chinese content producers and stimulate trade by protecting and promoting the co-creation of ideas.

Pact’s new guidelines are announced ahead of the 3^rd annual UK China Creative Exchange programme (11-15 March) which sees eleven executives from leading Chinese broadcasters and production companies travel the UK to co-create new programming ideas with UK partners.

Each Chinese executive will visit three participating indies across the UK’s nations and regions and work to build strategic relationships and co-develop projects. There will also be facilitated kick-off and wrap-up sessions in London to aid the participants in developing joint ways of working.

The new framework is a new addition to a suite of legal and logistics documents featured in the UK-China Film & TV Toolkit, a resource developed along with the UK’s Intellectual Property Attaché to China based in the British Embassy in Beijing and the British Film Institute (BFI).

Pact’s managing director of business development & global strategy, Dawn McCarthy-Simpson MBE, said: “Bringing likeminded producers together from the UK and China is key to fostering collaboration. This extension to our UK-China Film & TV Toolkit aims to provide the legal structure and confidence for both parties to share creative ideas, safe in the knowledge that they jointly own the IP”.