On January 9, 2017, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate promulgated the Opinions on Fully Performing of the Duty of Prosecution to Strengthen the Judicial Protection of IP rights. Mr. Xiaofeng Han, Vice Director of the Department of Detection Supervision, introduced four features illustrated by recent cases that involved the protection of IP rights.

   First, IP rights infringement crimes mainly involve trademark infringement. In 2015, local people’s procuratorates throughout China approved the arrest of over 4,200 criminal trademark infringement suspects, and prosecuted cases against over 7,300 suspects. These figures accounted for 95.9% and 92.1%, respectively, of the total number of criminals committing IP rights infringement crimes. Following trademark infringement, the crimes of copyright infringement and trade secret infringement were the most commonly committed IPR crimes.

   In terms of the geographical distribution, IPR crimes occur more often in economically developed regions. Among the approved arrests of 2015, for example, the total number of suspects arrested in the Beijing-Tianjin region, the Yangtze River Delta region and the Pearl River Delta region accounted for 72.4% of the total number of suspects arrested nationwide.

   Third, obvious industrialization, networking and trans-regional trends were found for IPR crimes. With the rapid development in the fields of communications, transportation, logistics and information networks, the criminal organization system has developed from the original “fight alone” model into the current model that utilizes entire industrial networks. Normally, several regions are involved simultaneously.

   Fourth, the consequences of IPR crimes have been increasingly serious. With the process of economic globalization and the development of the borderless Internet, the amounts in dispute over IPR crimes are rapidly increasing, and rights owners are suffering greater losses. These crimes may even harm China’s international image and bring about incalculable losses.

    Via www.legaldaily.com