On August 23, 2022, the Shanghai Administration for Market Supervision released a set of typical cases from its Three-Year Action Plan for the Quality and Safety Protection of Children’s and Student Products in Shanghai (2021-2023) (上海市儿童和学生用品质量安全守护三年行动方案（2021—2023年)). The Action Plan has so far yielded 8.1014 million RMB ($1.181 million USD) in fines and the first case of the release involves 7.2 million RMB in counterfeit Champion and Nike children’s clothing.
In July 2021, the Law Enforcement Team of the Municipal Market Supervision Bureau received a complaint report that Shanghai Qiaoyun Trading Co., Ltd., located at No. 476 Xiulong Village, Qingpu District, Shanghai, was suspected of selling counterfeit well-known brands of children’s clothing products. During the on-site inspection, it was found that the company had 2 heat transfer machines for transferring trademarks to clothing, and a large number of heat transfers bearing “NIKE” and “CHAMPION” trademarks that had not been transferred yet to clothing. By checking the sales records of the parties on the online platform, the law enforcement officers found that the value of the clothing products suspected of infringing the exclusive right to use the trademark amounted to more than 3 million RMB.
After the final appraisal of the trademark owners including Nike Sports (China) Co., Ltd., the registrant of the Nike trademark, and HBI Brand Apparel Enterprise Co., Ltd., the registrant of the Champion trademark, the accused used the same trademarks on the clothing they manufactured without the permission of the above-mentioned trademark registrants, which violates the provisions of Article 57(1) of the “Trademark Law of the People’s Republic of China”.
A total of 4,488 pieces of clothing suspected of infringing the exclusive right to use a registered trademark were seized at the scene, with a total value of 284,784 RMB. The value of the clothing manufactured by the party infringing the exclusive right to use a registered trademark has reached more than 150,000 RMB, which violated Article 213 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China on the crime of counterfeiting a registered trademark. According to relevant regulations, the case will be transferred to the public security department for investigation and handling. According to the follow-up investigation by the public security department, since June 2020, the accused have sold clothing products that infringed the exclusive right to use the trademark with a value of more than 7.2 million RMB.
The remaining typical customs relate to safe and substandard products. The full text of the announcement is available here (Chinese only).
