BEIJING: In April, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration released 10 typical cases of intellectual property protection in the municipality in 2020, covering patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret and Olympic logo. One of the cases was the crackdown on counterfeit Lego toy.
In December 2020, the Shanghai Higher People’s Court upheld the first-instance verdict on the case involving nine people forging 330 million yuan ($51 million) worth of Lego toys.
The criminal gang was accused of replicating Lego toys and selling them online and offline since 2015 under the brand name Lepin without authorization from Danish toy company Lego. The defendants received sentences ranging from six months to three years and fines of up to 90 million yuan ($14 million).
Huang Guoqiang, Senior Vice President and General Manager of China with Lego Group, said that China has taken a series of measures to protect the intellectual property rights (IPRs) of foreign-invested enterprises, which has strengthened Lego’s determination to develop the brand in the Chinese market.
According to a survey released by the National Intellectual Property Administration (NIPA) in April, the Chinese public is increasingly satisfied with the country’s protection of IPRs. The survey showed public satisfaction with China’s IPR protection last year reached a record high of 80.05 out of 100 points, 1.07 points higher than the figure in 2019, and 11.33 points higher than the 2015 number.
“The increase means that the active efforts from all regions and departments in IPR protection have been more widely recognized by all sectors of society,” Zhang Zhicheng, head of the NIPA’s intellectual property protection department, said at a press conference in April in Beijing.
Nearly 97 percent of respondents thought China’s legal system of IPR had been further improved, according to the survey based on replies from 12,000 respondents, including IPR holders, professionals and the general public.
Zhang attributed the high satisfaction rate to stronger legislation, as China has promulgated a succession of laws, regulations and IPR protection guidelines in recent years, including amendments to the patent and copyright laws.
For example, in 2019, the general offices of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council jointly issued the Guideline on Strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Protection.
According to the document, by 2022, China will strive to effectively curb IPR infringement, and largely overcome challenges including high costs, low compensation and difficulties in providing evidence for the safeguarding of IPRs. By 2025, public satisfaction with IPR protection in China is projected to reach and maintain a higher level.
China’s Copyright Law, first enacted in 1991 and amended several times after, drastically raised the ceiling for statutory damages. The introduction of punitive damages in its latest amendment will come into force on June 1 this year.
Recent years have also seen punitive damages included into Chinese laws such as the Trademark Law and the Patent Law to help the country transform itself from the “factory of the world” to a “factory of ideas and knowledge” by better protecting IPRs and spurring on creativity.
– The Daily Mail-Beijing Review News exchange item
