In the first half this year, administrations for industry and commerce of various levels nationwide fully implement the assignments of the working conference of the national industry and commerce administrative management and China's Action Plan of IPR Protection 2008, strengthen trademark-related administrative law enforcement, intensify the work of protecting the exclusive rights to the Olympic symbols focusing on protecting trademarks of food and medicines, agriculture-related trademarks, geographical indications, renowned trademarks and foreign-related trademarks, and crack down on activities of trademark infringement and counterfeit. The administrations totally investigate and deal with 21,045 cases of trademark transgression of various kinds, a number exceeding 20,000 for the first time compared with the same period of time of previous years.

In the first half his year, administrations for industry and commerce nationwide totally investigate and deal with 21,045 cases of trademark transgression of various kinds, increasing 10.92 percent, or 2,072 cases year on year. Of the number, 16,630 are domestic cases, up 1,172 cases, or 7.58 percent; foreign-related cases reach 4,415, up 900 cases, or 25.6 percent compared with the same period of last year. Fines and the sum to be confiscated total 175 million yuan, a year on year growth of 8.58 percent; 53 suspected criminals in 50 suspected criminal cases of trademark transgression are handed over to judicial departments.

In terms of case type, the number of cases of general trademark offences and trademark counterfeit increases to some extent compared with the same period last year, with trademark infringement and counterfeit cases accounting for a major part of the increased number. In the first half this year, administrations for industry and commerce totally investigate and deal with 17,986 cases of trademark infringement and counterfeit, up 2,027 cases, or 12.7 percent compared with the same period last year.

In terms of regional distribution, the top seven provinces and municipalities in terms of the number of such cases investigated and dealt with are: Zhejiang (3,309), Guangdong (1,893), Fujian (1,647), Henan (1,500), Shandong (1,411), Hebei (1,116) and Shanghai (1,111).

In the first half this year, administrations for industry and commerce of various levels nationwide attach great importance to the work of protecting the exclusive rights to the Olympic symbols, clarify the goals and responsibilities of the work of protecting the exclusive rights to the Olympic symbols through closely supporting local government, BOCOG and related departments, well-conceived arrangement and precisely organization, actively organize and launch centralized rectification actions to protect the exclusive rights to the Olympic symbols during important occasions such as the Olympic countdown celebrations and Olympic torch relay activities, in key regions such as Olympic event cities, cities along Olympic torch relay route and important tourism cities and in the important links of Olympic licensed product manufacturing, circulation and trademark printing, and effectively protect the legal rights and interests of the right holders of Olympic symbols according to the Regulations on the Protection of the Olympic Symbols and the Action Plan of Protecting the Exclusive Rights to the Olympic Symbols so as to create a sound environment of IPR protection for Beijing Olympic Games. Administrations for industry and commerce in Olympic event cities also actively mobilize social forces to participate in Olympic symbol protection so as to establish sound images of the Olympic event cities. Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce increases people's awareness of consciously protecting Olympic IPRs through organizing Olympics-related units to sign responsibility agreements and training business people in Olympic regions on Olympics-related IPR. Qingdao Administration for Industry and Commerce, the Sailing Committee (Qingdao) of BOCOG and the Legal Affairs Department of BOCOG jointly formulate and issue Measures of Qingdao City on Rewarding Those Who Report Cases of Olympic Symbol Infringement. Thanks to the efforts in the past years, the atmosphere of consciously protecting Olympic symbols has been formed, exerting positive influence to improving China's reputation in IPR protection worldwide.

Statistics show that in the first half this year, administrations for industry and commerce nationwide totally investigate and deal with 457 cases of general Olympic symbol offence, 424 more than the same period of last year, up 1284.85 percent; the value involved reaches 6.6424 million yuan, up 2102.66 percent, with a fine of 2.06 million yuan; a total of 32,359 illegally used Olympic symbols are confiscated and eliminated and 3,267 right-infringed products are destroyed. In the first half this year, administrations for industry and commerce investigate and deal with 1,232 cases of infringing the exclusive rights to the Olympic symbols, increasing 1,123 cases, or 1030.28 percent year on year, with the value involved reaching 11.3132 million yuan and fines of 7.1702 million yuan; a total of 174,560 right-infringed products, 81,012 illegally used trademark symbols and 326 special tools for manufacturing right-infringed products and forging registered trademark symbols are confiscated and destroyed.

In the first half this year, administrations for industry and commerce of various levels nationwide continue to enhance the protection of foreign-related trademarks by paying close attention to the areas with frequent infringements of foreign-related trademarks, timely adjusting rectification focuses according to new trends of right infringement activities, carefully protecting foreign-related trademarks, severely dealing with foreign-related trademark transgression cases of various kinds and effectively protecting the legal rights and interests of right holders of foreign-related trademarks. Early this year, Xiamen Administration for Industry and Commerce investigates a severe case of selling sportswear with famous trademarks such as REEBOK, ADIDAS and NIKE with value involved exceeding 2 million yuan. In the first half this year, administrations for industry and commerce of various levels nationwide totally investigate and deal with 4,415 cases of infringing foreign-related trademarks, increasing 900 cases, or 25.6 percent compared with the same period last year.

Trade counterfeit cases continue to constitute the major part of all the cases of foreign-related trademark infringement investigated. In the first half this year, administrations for industry and commerce of various levels nationwide totally investigate and deal with 4,354 cases of counterfeiting foreign-related trademarks, a growth of 888 cases, or 25.62 percent year on year, accounting for 98.62 percent of all the cases of foreign-related trademark infringement; a total of 61 general offence cases of foreign-related trademarks are investigated, up 24.49 percent year on year, accounting for 1.38 percent of the total.

In regional distribution, the following provinces and municipalities possess comparatively larger number of cases of foreign-related trademark infringement: Zhejiang (1,250), Guangdong (1,166), Shanghai (784), Fujian (504) and Beijing (229). The five provinces and municipalities have totally 3,933 foreign-related trademark infringement cases, accounting for 89.08 percent of the total number nationwide.

While energetically investigating and dealing with cases of trademark transgression, administrations for industry and commerce of various levels nationwide fully implement the important decisions made by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on resolving the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers and the working arrangement of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and actively launch the work of encouraging farmers to get rich by means of trademark. Focusing on promoting efficiency in agricultural production, increasing farmers income and encouraging rural development, and making agricultural product trademarks and geographical indications as the cut-in points of supplying industry and commerce services, on the one hand, administrations for industry and commerce enhance the awareness of farmers and agriculture-related enterprises in actively registering trademarks, meticulously fostering their own trademarks and consciously protecting trademarks; on the other hand, efforts are made to specially guide agricultural and sideline product processing enterprises with special characteristics to establish the consciousness of setting up their own brands so as to increase their market competitiveness of the agricultural and sideline products by taking advantage of trademarks and accelerate the process of fostering the international renowned trademarks of China's agricultural products. In order to further strengthen the administrative efforts in protecting trademarks of agricultural products and geographical indications, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce holds an on-the-spot working conference of the national industry and commerce administration setups to launch the project of "one grassroots industry and commerce unit fostering at least one agriculture-related trademark" in Hanzhong, Shaanxi Province. In the first half this year, administration for industry and commerce nationwide intensify their efforts in fighting against the activities of infringing the exclusive rights to the trademarks of agricultural products, collective trademarks and certification trademarks so as to protect farmers' interests in a pragmatic manner. Two cases of illegally using the special symbols of geographical indication products and five cases of infringing the exclusive rights to the geographical indications are investigated and dealt with, with value involved reaching 36,000 yuan for each of the two types.