76 million pieces of IPR infringing products detained by customs in the special crackdown

The Customs authorities across China have confiscated 12,205 shipments of goods in international trade for violating intellectual property rights (IPR) and have detained more than 76.15 million pieces of items during the special campaign on fighting against IPR infringement and counterfeiting.

Since the special campaign was declared last October, the General Administration of Customs had taken prompt actions in deployment making and plan formulating and worked out twelve measures for customs authorities across the country to follow.

Hangzhou customs, after analyzing its local conditions, targeted the exports of small commodities in Yiwu and set up a registration system to make all the operators in the supply chain on the record, while customs in other cities, such as Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Nanjing, took other measures either to supervise the exports in key areas or to conduct random investigations to shipments.

By analyzing the features of IPR violations in imports and exports, the customs managed to improve their approaches in information collection and administration. For example, Shanghai customs established a special panel constituted by officials experienced in IPR and published over 260 warning notices based on a thorough analysis of more than four thousand IPR violations in recent years regarding 600 offending businesses; Hangzhou customs, by targeting key areas, detained 10 containers of IPR infringing goods, including 1,377 refrigerators and over 10 thousand DVD players valued at more than 3.5 million yuan.

The special crackdown has effectively deterred IPR infringements in imports and exports and the efforts of the customs have been highly recognized. Awards such as "Excellent Leadership in 2010-2011 Special Campaign against IPR infringement and Counterfeiting" and "Best Government Agency in Anti-Counterfeiting Award" were given to Chinese customs for their prominent performance in the actions.

Zou Zhiwu, Deputy Commissioner of the General Administration of Customs, defined the customs'actions in the crackdown as being "properly deployed, clearly targeted, seriously carried out and long-term effect valued". The launch of the special campaign was only a means to achieve the goal, while the final goal was to establish a permanent system, he said. In the next stage, the customs will continually tighten the suppression of IPR violations, encourage right holders to coordinate in law enforcement actions and enhance the partnership with them to strengthen local businesses'capacity in IPR creation and utilization.