General Administration of Customs: 280 mln infringing commodities seized

The General Administration of Customs released news on April 19 that, in 2009, China Customs suspended 67,000 batches of import and export goods suspected of infringing intellectual property rights, of which 66,000 batches were actually detained, involving 280 million pieces of infringing commodities with a value of 450 mln yuan.

"From the analysis of the infringing goods captured by China Customs recently, export goods took up an absolutely high proportion. The amount and value respectively accounted for 99.9% and 99% of all the infringing goods," said Zhao Fudi, the spokesman of the General Administration of Customs.

It is introduced that the infringing goods seized last year showed the following features. First, most of the infringing goods were suspected of infringing the exclusive rights of trademarks and relevant commodity amount and value occupied 99% and 94% of all the infringing goods; second, infringing goods delivered by mail and express channel were large, while the quantity of infringing commodities shipped by sea still took the first place. 94% of the infringing goods were captured by the ports including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Beijing and Harbin; third, the beneficiary were mostly from Europe and the United States while the benefits got by Chinese IPR holders were notably increased, too. In 2009, the IPR holders benefiting from the IPR protection of China Customs were from 34 countries and regions, involving 11,462 items of intellectual property rights. In term of the quantity of goods, the first five countries whose enterprises' IPRs were protected were Britain, Switzerland, China, the United States and France.

However, IPR holders' refusal to come to time becomes the puzzle in law enforcement.

"During the law enforcement of the Customs, sometimes IPR holders did not actively come to time, which became an obvious puzzle confronted by us," said Meng Yang, the head of the Politics and Law Department of the General Administration of Customs.

After finding the infringing goods, the Customs should consider the recordation information of IPR holders to determine whether to detain the goods or not. In 2009, China Customs found more than 2,530 batches of goods suspected infringement and let over 1,300 batches of goods go. 939 batches were let go because IPR holders did not alter their recordation information timely and 237 batches of goods were because IPR holders gave up protection.

By the end of 2009, only 12,227 trademark rights were recorded and checked in the Customs, merely 0.36% of all the effective registered trademarks totaling 3 mln pieces.

"Of course, the trademarks recorded in the Customs should have relation with import and export. In these years, the increased recorded trademarks each year were about 2,000 pieces, showing that the awareness of enterprises in IPR Customs protection is enhancing." said Zhao Fudi. "China Customs will launch IPR publicity and education to domestic enterprises processing products with customer-designed brand name for export purpose, reduce domestic enterprises' economic loss due to receiving orders producing infringing goods and cut the throat of infringing goods at the very beginning."