Chinese President to visit world’s largest victim of intellectual property theft

Chinese President Hu Jinatao is scheduled to arrive in the United States this morning to kick off a round of checkbook diplomacy.  Intellectual property rights will, of course, be a main topic of discussion as the President visits the White House (which, officially, is not a full-blown state visit), Yale, and, uh, Bill Gates.

Huh?  Bill Gates?

Yep…the Chinese President is scheduled to visit Microsoft’s Redmond campus and the Home of the Future.  He’s even going to dine with the Chairman of the world’s largest victim of intellectual property piracy (along with about 100 other business people).  The timing of the Lenovo/Microsoft deal, inked yesterday, seems to indicate that the check for that meal is already in the mail, especially considering that the announced deal is about three times larger than what was expected by Wall Street.