On March 25, 2022, the Shanghai Third Intermediate People’s Court announced the affirmance of an earlier ruling sentencing defendant Wu XX to 3-years imprisonment and a 100,000 RMB fine (~$15 thousand USD) for counterfeiting a registered trademark of 3M on masks. In a larger case last year, the same court upheld a sentence of 4.5-years imprisonment for counterfeiting registered trademarks for 3M on masks. The number of seized counterfeit 3M registered trademark masks in the instant case were about 1/10 …
Author: Aaron Wininger
Aaron Wininger is a Principal and Director of the China Intellectual Property at Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner.
China’s Trademark Office Releases 2021 Statistics: 482K Malicious Applications Rejected; 7 Months to Registration; Registrations Up 34% YoY
On March 23, 2022, the Trademark Office of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released a summary of statistics for 2021 in a document entitled 这些数字，让我们记住2021年！ Like the Patent Office of CNIPA cracking down on “irregular” patent applications, the TM Office rejected 482,000 trademark application for malicious registration not intended for use and preemptively rejected 1,628 malicious trademarks applications that harm social and public interests, and invalidated 1,729 registered trademarks ex officio. The preemptive rejections may be for Olympic-related …
China’s Supreme People’s Court Issues Judicial Interpretation of Anti-Unfair Competition Law
On March 16, 2022, China’s Supreme People’s Court issued the Judicial Interpretation (JI) of Anti-Unfair Competition Law (UCL) (最高人民法院关于适用〈中华人民共和国反不正当竞争法〉若干问题的解释), which will go into effect March 20, 2022. The Anti-Unfair Competition Law has been used effectively by foreigners in trademark and trade dress cases when the foreigners’ trademarks have not been registered (or in addition to a trademark infringement claim for a registered trademark). Per a press conference held by the Third Civil Division of the Supreme People’s Court, one of …
Europol: More Than Half of Counterfeits Originate in China
On March 7, 2022, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) jointly released the Intellectual Property Crime Threat Assessment 2022. Per the Assessment, China (including Hong Kong) was the main source of counterfeits based on number of counterfeits and by value of the counterfeits seized at the EU external borders. Almost 76% of the fake goods detained were for trademark infringement; design infringement was the second most reported at 23% …