China reinforces crackdown on trademark violations

September 4, 2007

Administrations for Industry and Commerce across China have strengthened crackdown on trademark violation cases in the first half of this year, in an effort to protect the legal rights and interests of trademark holders from home and abroad.
Industry and commerce authorities at all levels handled 18,973 cases involving trademark infringement in the first six months of the year, which slightly increased 0.43 percent over the same period of last year.

Of all the cases, 15,458 were domestic and 3,515 were foreign ones, up 0.18 percent and 1.53 percent respectively.

About 162 million yuan (21.4 million U.S. dollars) has been confiscated as penalty, and 58 cases and 76 suspects have been brought to trial.

Of all the cases, 15,959 were found of counterfeiting registered trademarks, up 3.01 percent as against the first half of last year. The remaining 3,014 cases were found of ordinary trademark infringement.

A total of 14,296 cases were brought to court over charge of trademark infringement, up 3.87 percent compared with the same period of last year. 2154 cases were convicted of ordinary violations, up 2.04 percent, and 12142 cases were convicted of counterfeit infringement, up 4.21 percent.