Tough stance against intellectual property breaches paying off

China is offering better protection of foreign businesses' intellectual property rights, said officials at the annual meeting of the Quality Brands Protection Committee of the China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment on June 19.

The QBPC was founded in 2000 and works to improve China's administrative and judicial IP protection. It is an influential platform for the international community and institutions to learn about IP development in China.

As of May, the QBPC has nearly 200 multinational company members. Most of them are headquartered in the United States, Europe, Asia and Oceania, said Chairman Michael Ding.

The QBPC started ranking the annual top 10 IP cases in 2002. It has been rolling out an annual list of model cases bridging administrative and judicial IP enforcement since 2012, Ding added.

The 2018-19 top 10 cases in IP protection and model cases bridging administrative and judicial IP enforcement were unveiled at the meeting last week.

This year, the QBPC selected 10 criminal and 10 noncriminal cases. Among them were criminal cases such as sales of counterfeit seeds and drugs that risk people's well-being. This demonstrates law enforcement's resolve in ensuring the people's property value and safety.

One noncriminal case, where the suspects were seized overseas and found accountable in China, is an example of how cross-border anti-counterfeiting cooperation managed to tackle counterfeit goods' distribution. Others are concerned with trademark infringement and unfair competition.

Guenther Marten, minister counselor and IP attache at the European Union Intellectual Property Office, said IP protection is doing reasonably well in China. There were 258,000 civil IP cases in China in 2018. The number was only 6,000 in the US.

"In the future, we would like to see China's IP protection from a European perspective," he said. "In Europe, we have a written procedure that many evidences can be presented in several rounds to the judge. One action is based on different grounds and different judgments will be delivered, so the proceedings can be separated into different ones."

"IP enforcement and capability is across China. My team and China are building an unaffected IP system to support economic growth, improve living standards and provide safe and quality products for all people, "said Cerian Foulkes, the United Kingdom IP office attache in China.

Duncan Willson, the IP attache at the US embassy in Beijing, said: "The QBPC has fulfilled its commitment to IP protection and to ensuring all the hardworking law enforcement organs get the credit they deserve."

yinruowei@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 06/27/2019 page17)