In the first half of 2007, the trademark offices of the administrations for industry and commerce of various levels nationwide strengthened their protection efforts on well-known trademarks, foreign related trademarks, trademarks for agricultural products and geographical indications through severely cracking down on trademark infringement and counterfeiting, cutting off the market circulation of imitations of brand-name goods, intensifying supervision on trademarks and standardizing trademark using, on the basis of implementing the plan made at the National Industry and Commerce Administration Conference and the core requests of protecting the exclusive right of registered trademarks. Their efforts, focusing on the wholesales and retail markets, improved their efficiency of law enforcement, perfected the trademark law-enforcement system, maintained a sound market economic order and promoted the faster and healthier development of trademark sector.

During the period of time, the administrations for industry and commerce nationwide continued deepening their works of protecting the exclusive right of trademarks, and strengthening their supervision on some key sectors, units and industries. Shanghai Administration of Industry and Commerce launched a special action to protect foreign related famous trademarks, Olympic logo and logo of the World Expo; Tianjin Administration of Industry and Commerce combined its efforts of information publicity with law enforcement, focusing on cracking down on violations of the exclusive right of the foreign related trademarks and trademarks of farm produces. Through combining daily supervision with special actions, the administration severely cracked down on trademark infringements to protect the trademark holders' legal rights at home and abroad. In the first half of 2007, the administrations for industry and commerce of various levels nationwide totally dealt with 18,973 cases of trademark infringement, up 0.43 percent year on year. Of the number, 15,458 cases were related to domestic trademark violation, a year-on-year increase of 0.18 percent; foreign related trademark violations reached 3,515, up 1.53 percent. A total of 162 million yuan was fined and confiscated during the process, a year-on-year growth of 11.97 percent. 76 people in 58 cases were transferred to judicial organs.

A total of 14,296 cases of trademark violation were investigated, increasing by 533 cases, up 3.87 percent compared with the same period of last year, including 2,154 cases of general trademark offenses, up 2.04 percent, and 12,142 cases of trademark infringement and imitation, up 4.21 percent. Trademark infringements and imitations made up for the most part of the added cases.

The number of trademark infringements and imitations continued going up and the cases of general trademark offense kept declining. A total of 3,014 cases of general trademark offense were handled, decreasing by 385 cases, down 11.33 percent year on year. A total of 15,959 cases of trademark infringement and imitation were handled, increasing by 466 cases, up 3.01 percent.

There were seven provinces and municipalities in China with the number of such cases exceeding 1,000: Zhejiang, 3,199, Henan, 1,437, Hebei, 1,336, Shandong, 1,270, Guangdong, 1,265, Fujian, 1,231 and Shanghai, 1,104.

With the approach of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the administrations for industry and commerce of various levels nationwide further strengthened their protection for Olympic logo, severely cracking down on the violations of the exclusive right of Olympic logo. Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce attaches great importance to the protection of the exclusive right of Olympic logo. Through intensifying its daily work, the administration established a quick-responding and effective Olympic logo law enforcement and inspection network on the basis of the advanced law enforcement platform consisting the industry and commerce administration, branches and offices at municipality, district and neighborhood levels, effectively protecting the exclusive right of Olympic logo and establishing an excellent image of the Olympic Games hosting city. According to the Plan of the Action on the Exclusive Right of Olympic Logo Protection issued by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce on July 20, the action of protecting the exclusive right of Olympic logo will be launched nationwide in August.

The administrations of industry and commerce of various levels nationwide totally dealt with 33 general offenses related to Olympic logo in the first half of 2007, worth 301,700 yuan, with a fine of 284,200 yuan, confiscating and eliminating 5,123 illegal logos. Meanwhile, they handled 109 cases of violating the exclusive right of the Olympic logo, worth 891,500 yuan, with a fine of 1.0651 million yuan, confiscating and eliminating 12,923 illegal logos. A total of 15 molds for trademark infringement were confiscated and 3.12 tons of pirated goods were confiscated and destroyed.

(China Industry and Commerce News)