In the first half of 2015, State Administration for Industry & Commerce (hereinafter SAIC) has made remarkable achievements in actively implementing Action Plan for In-depth Implementation of National IP Strategy (hereinafter the Action Plan).
The statistics show that in the first half of 2015, there were a total of 1,315,000 applications for trademark registration, an increase of 27.3% as compared to the same period of the previous year; 338 applications for trademark pledge registration and 4529 trademark pledges. Moreover, SAIC helped enterprises to finance 13.53 billion Yuan and continually advanced the policy of helping farmers to get rich through trademarks in an effort to serve the development of modern agriculture.
With regard to the protection of intellectual property rights, in the first half of 2015, 24,000 cases of infringement and counterfeit were investigated and prosecuted, involving 380,000,000 Yuan, wherein 126 suspected criminal cases were transferred to judicial offices. In Red Shield Sword Net 2015 special action, 2,904 cases of unfair competition and infringement of intellectual property right were investigated and prosecuted, involving a total value of 104,294,800 Yuan and a total fine of 32,247,000 Yuan was imposed.
In addition, SAIC issued the Regulations on Prohibition of Abuse of Intellectual Property Right to Restrict Competition and revised Examination Guidelines for Trademark.