China has detained over 78 million counterfeits – proves the status quo solves.

In 2022, with the pandemic hindering the recovery of the world economy, China enhanced its focus on intellectual property rights with amendments to laws and regulations, and strengthened law enforcement and justice to combat new trends in infringement and counterfeiting. The amendments to the framework concerning the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) in 2022 included:

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Provisions on Prohibiting the Acts of Eliminating or Restricting Competition by Abuse of IPR, revised by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR);Cybersecurity Review Measures, revised by 13 departments ;Provisions on Supervision and Administration of Trademark Agents, promulgated by the SAMR ;Implementation of Interpretation of Several Issues regarding the Application of the Anti-Illegal Competition Law, announced by the Supreme Court; Several Provisions on Jurisdiction of Civil and Administrative IPR Cases of First Instance, promulgated and applied by the Supreme Court;Notice on Issuing Standards for Basic People’s Courts’ Jurisdiction over IPR Civil and Administrative Cases of First Instance, issued by the Supreme Court; Opinions on Strengthening the Judicial IPR Protection of Traditional Chinese Medicine, issued by the Supreme Court; Guiding Opinions on Protecting the IPR of the Seed Industry, Fighting against Counterfeit and Shoddy Brand, and Creating a Good Environment for the Revitalisation of the Seed Industry, jointly issued by seven authorities; Provisions on Intellectual Property Credit Management, issued by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA); Opinions on Strengthening the Coordination of Intellectual Property Appraisal Work, jointly issued by the CNIPA, Supreme Court, Supreme Procuratorate, MPS and SAMR; Opinions on Strengthening Collaborative IPR Protection, issued by the Supreme Procuratorate and CNIPA. Border measures

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In 2022, the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC) carried out its “Longteng” campaign to comprehensively strengthen IPR protection, the “Blue Net” campaign to protect the IPR in delivery channels and the “Clean Net” campaign to protect the IPR of export transhipment goods, detaining 61,000 batches of suspected infringing goods, involving nearly 78 million goods items.

Companies engaged in cross-border transactions should take customs protection seriously. It is highly recommended to first record the IPR in the GACC system. Information of authorised factories or companies involved in import or export should also be recorded under the respective IPR. Customs all over China will then ex officio take preliminary action to detain or release a shipment based on the recorded IPR and its authorised companies, usually referred to as ‘white list’ companies.

If the company related to the shipment is in the white list, its import and export will not be affected. Otherwise, the goods will be temporarily detained. After the temporary detention of suspected infringing goods, local Customs will issue a notification to the right owner, requiring the right owner to respond within three working days as to whether to finally detain or release the goods. Right owners that decide to detain the goods should also pay a security bond equalling the value of the detained goods. If the right owner does not respond within the time limit, or does not pay the security bond, the goods will be released. For goods which are detained, the local customs will conduct a deep investigation to confirm the infringement or counterfeit.

If the customs investigation does not confirm the infringement, the customs detention is improper and the right owner needs to pay damages to the owner of the detained goods for the harm caused by the improper customs action. If infringement or counterfeit is confirmed, a penalty will be imposed on the infringers. Where the value of the detained counterfeit goods meets the criminal threshold, the local customs will transfer the case to the public security bureau (PSB) for criminal investigation. In March 2022, the Customs of Chengdu Shuangliu Airport seized 1,488,300 game cards, 18,000 laser card books, 16,200 commemorative coins, and 72,000 sets of plastic protective cases in export cargos. They were suspected of infringing the POKEMON trademark of Nintendo Co, Ltd by the confirmation of the right holder. Customs detained the goods and transferred the cases to the PSB for criminal investigation. This case is typical in showing that law enforcement cooperation between the PSB and Customs builds strong cross-border protection of IPR.