On September 2, 2020, just 6 months after the Shanghai People’s Procuratorate announced the criminal copyright prosecution of Lego infringers, the Shanghai Third Intermediate Court has announced the sentencing of the same 9 people to up to 6 years in jail and a 90 million RMB (~$13 million USD) fine. The group of 9 had sold over 300 million RMB of infringing products under the Lepin (乐拼) brand and had over 30 million RMB of infringing products stored ready for …
Category: Copyright
China’s National People’s Congress Releases Second Draft of Amended Copyright Law
On August 17, 2020, China’s National People’s Congress released the Amendments to the Copyright Law (Second Deliberation Draft) (中华人民共和国著作权法修正案（草案二次审议稿)) for comment. The deadline for comments is September 30, 2020.
China’s National People’s Congress to Start Second Deliberation on Amended Copyright Law
In follow up to the public comment period on the draft amendment to the Copyright law,the draft amendment was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for the second deliberation on August 8, 2020. Per Xinhau, ” the second deliberation of the draft improved the definition and type of works, deleted the provisions regarding affecting the normal dissemination of works, and added relevant regulations to protect the copyright of audiovisual works.”
Shanghai Police Announce Arrests in Hasbro Transformers Criminal Copyright Case
Shanghai may be becoming the venue of choice for criminal prosecution of intellectual property infringement. On July 23, 2020, the Shanghai Public Security Bureau announced the arrest of several individuals affiliated with the Wei Jiang Company (“威将”) for criminal copyright infringement of Hasbro’s Transformers toys. The alleged sales volume of infringing goods was over 100 million RMB (~$14 million USD) and more than 30,000 imitation products and parts were seized. This follows the recent announcement of the conviction of Dyson trademark …