"Trademark right is a private right, which means in most countries, you may only enforce such right by lodging a complaint to the court of law.  In China, however, while the court proceedings are available for trademark disputes, administrations for industry and commerce (AIC) are also authorized to take ex officio actions to curb infringements.  Consequently, 80% or even 90% of all trademark cases are handled by the AICs by virtue of their granted powers," portrayed Vice Minister Li Dongsheng at the joint press conference of his State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) and the State Council Information Office on June 12 in Beijing.

According to SAIC's statistics, AICs of all layers have investigated 193,332 trademark infringements since China's accession to the WTO, 28,041 of which involve foreign parties.  A good bit of international blue chip marks, such as Adidas, Playboy, Montagut, Lacoste  could be found on the SAIC Foreign Trademark Case Collection 2006.

Analysts here note approvingly that China is gradually stepping up its trademark protection given the numbers of cases handled and how they were handled.  The government's conviction and confidence in strictly enforcing the policy also manifest themselves in a range of IPR protection activities.