According to a press release dated August 4, 2023 from the China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) 11,675 people were prosecuted for IP Crimes in the first half 2023, up 36.1% year-on-year. Criminal trademark infringement made up the majority of IP crimes with 10,384 people prosecuted accounting for 88.9% of the total. Copyright was second with 1,122 persons prosecuted. Trade secret misappropriation was third with 167 people prosecuted, up 89.8% year-on-year.
China’s National Intellectual Property Administration Releases the “2023 Outline for Building a Powerful Intellectual Property Country and Implementation Promotion Plan of the 14th Five-Year Plan”
On July 27, 2023, China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released the 2023 Outline for Building a Powerful Intellectual Property Country and Implementation Promotion Plan of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2023年知识产权强国建设纲要和“十四五”规划实施推进计划). The plan has 139 points in groupings as follows: Improving intellectual property laws, regulations and rules; Reform and improve major policies on intellectual property rights; Improving intellectual property rules in emerging fields and specific fields; Strengthen the judicial protection of intellectual property rights; Strengthen the administrative protection of intellectual …
15 Rolex Counterfeiters Sentenced to up to 6.5 Years Prison in 300 Million RMB Counterfeit Case
On July 22, 2023, the Zhenjiang Economic Development Zone People’s Court announced the sentencing of 15 defendants to prison sentences ranging from suspended sentences to six years six months plus fines for the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks belong to Rolex. The amount involved in the counterfeit case that ran from July 2015 to April 2021 was over 300 million RMB.
Chinese Trademark Registrations Down 45% in First Half of 2023 Year-on-Year
In recently released data from the Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), the number of Chinese trademark authorizations dropped just over 45% in the first half of 2023 versus the first half of 2022. Specifically, there were 2,018,119 trademarks granted in 2023 H1 versus 3,673,925 in 2022 H1. The number of foreign-originated trademark grants also dropped from 98,650 to 60,776 in 2023 H1 (down about 38%) although as a percentage foreign-originated trademark grants increased from 2.7% to 3% of total …