It was learnt on the China Trademark Festival 2007 held on November 4th in Changsha, that from the year 2002 to the first half of this year, the department taking charge of fair trade law enforcement and economic order inspection under the State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC) had investigated 60,203 IP infringement cases, with a total value of 141.5 million RMB, and obtained confiscation and penalty valuing 47.2 million RMB.

According to Mr. Li Wenzhang, deputy director general of Fair Trade Department of SAIC, SAIC and its local branches across China have been concentrating on cracking down trademark infringement, behaviors of counterfeiting brand, package or decoration of famous brands and infringing other companies' names in their law enforcement. Only in the first half this year, SAIC had already investigated 2,526 trademark infringement cases, totaling 25.42 million RMB, and fined 14.71 million RMB; 1104 cases of counterfeiting names, package and decoration of famous brands, totaling 15.99 million RMB, fined 6.66 million RMB; 782 cases of infringing other companies' names, valuing 32.76 million RMB and fined 11.70 million RMB.

In recent years, SAIC have provided IP protection to Estee Lauder Company and Coca Cola Company (China) as well as other international companies. In 2004, for example, SAIC had successfully solved the dispute of the inappropriate company's name registration, in which the trademark Estee Lauder was infringed. This action was highly valued by all domestic and international circles, especially by American media.

As the enforcement body the Law of Trademark of the People's Republic of China, SAIC and its local branches, under the instruction of central government and supports from various circles of society, have actively publicized and implemented the law, and contributed to the development and protection of trademark in China.

In order to further improve trademark registration and right protection efficiency, and to simplify the procedures, China is amending the Trademark Law for the third time. At present, the State Council has already listed this to its legislation plan this year, and SAIC has been busy with relevant researches.

Recently, the Trademark Department of SAIC has received increasingly more applications for geographic indication. In 2001, there were only 33, but in 2002 it jumped to 66, and in 2003 there were 95, in 2004 115, in 2005 165, and 206 in 2006. The applications from 2001 to 2006 accounted for 83.3% of all applications from 1995 till 2006.

(Xinhua)