Recently, the General Administration of Customs released news that, in 2009, the Customs across the country 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 million RMB.
A majority of the infringing goods are in the export channel and the value and quality of these goods took up of 99.9% and 99% respectively of all the infringing goods seized by the customs.
the infringing goods seized last year showed the following features. First, most of the infringing goods were infringing the exclusive rights of trademarks; second, infringing goods delivered by mail and express channel were comparatively large, while the quantity of infringing commodities shipped by sea still took the first place. The major customs which seized more infringing goods are 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 IPRs were protected were Britain, Switzerland, China, the United States and France.
However, it always happen that IPR holders did not fully implement their legal obligations. For example, in 2009, China Customs found more than 2,530 batches of goods suspected infringement and more than 1,300 batches of goods were released. Among these goods, 939 batches were released due to the fact that IPR holders did not alter their recordation information timely and 237 batches of goods were released because IPR holders gave up protection. Surprisingly, of all the valid trademark registrations (about 3milliion), only 12,227 trademark rights were recorded and checked in the Customs, merely 0.36% of all the registered trademarks .
It is also learned that due to the lack of awareness for IP protection and non-examination of the related IP rights, many OEM in China hve to take the legal responsibilities for the infringement.
