China's 2020 Action Plan on Protection of Intellecutual Property Rights (IPR)

The trademark infringement and patent counterfeiting of food products, both sold online and offline, will still be the primary focus of SAMR surveillance this year. In 2020, the average trademark registration audit cycle is aimed to be shortened to four months. E-commerce platforms will optimize the online right protection channel. Relevant rules in the E-commerce Law may be revised accordingly.

China first raised the goal to become an IPR protection powerhosue in 2014. In order to achieve this goal, SAMR and the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) jointly issued the 2019 'Iron Fist Action Plan'^[1] for IPR Enforcement to crack down on infringement of trademark and patent intellectual property rights and other illegal activities. According to the IPR Protection Process Conference of 2019 ^[2] released on April 26, 2020, special campaigns like "Iron Fist Action" led to the Public Security Bureau's investigation of 24 thousand cases involving IPR infringements and product counterfeiting, the case value of which totaled 8.67 billion yuan. The GAC seized 51 thousand batches of imported and exported infringing products in 2019.

SAMR, the Intellectual Property Office and other relevant departments all released the 2020 Action Plan ^[3] to further promote IPR protection.

SAMR: Major Targets in the Iron Fist Action Plan 2020

The trademark infringement and patent counterfeiting of food products, both sold online and offline, will still be the primary focus of SAMR surveillance. This year, the monitoring of geographical indication counterfeiting will be further intensified. In China, the government adopts a "bilateral agreement" system to acknowledge geographical indications worldwide. For example, the EU and China concluded the negotiations on a bilateral agreement ^[4]in 2019 and updated the number of recognized European Geographical Indications in China to one hundred (includes wines, spirits, cheese products, etc.).

Besides, governments in each area will also be active in organizing educational programs to propagate the protection of intellectual property. On April 26, 2020, World Intellectual Property Day, Chongqing Government destroyed 300 thousand products in public, valued at 40 million yuan, including counterfeit Red Bull, Aptamil, etc.

Intellectual Property Office: Facilitated Trademark Registration and Protection in 2020

In 2019, the average trademark registration audit cycle was shortened to four and a half months. According to the Intellectual Property Office notification ^[5] released on April 20, 2020, the office will shorten the average time to four months.

As for the right protection, the Supreme People's Court explained in the file ^[6] on April 15, 2020, that China will strengthen the protection of well-known brands and will accept certain well-known facts to alleviate trademark owners' burden of proofs. The scope of allowed digital data will be expanded as well. Besides,E-commerce platforms shall also cooperate with the government to optimize protection channels and develop internal capacities to deal with intellectual property disputes on their platforms.

Other Highlights

China may keep accelerating the revision of the 'Trademark Law' to strengthen the trademark protection and law enforcement, and will also push forward the revision of E-commerce Law to reinforce the IPR protection in the E-commerce field, according to the 2020-2021 IPR protection plan ^[7] by Intellectual Property Office.

Except for government supervision, enterprises are also greatly encouraged to protect their interests. New channels like Wechat Moments will also be a focus. According to a report by China National Radio ^[8]on April 27, 2020, a student using Wechat to tout counterfeit watches was the subject of litigation taken by the company Daniel Wellington for trademark infringement. The student was forced to compensate the company 80 thousand yuan while his upstream sellers were fined 800 thousand yuan.