Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security of the PRC jointly issued the Rules on the Threshold of Case Bringing and Prosecution of Criminal Acts on May 18, setting standards for bringing cases of 86 types of economic crime cases and prosecution, which are enforced by the economic crime investigation units under public security organs. The new rules further clarify the conditions of IPR criminal cases in followings: cases of counterfeiting two patents, amount of illegal business value reaching 100,000 yuan or illegal income more than 50,000 yuan will be placed on file and prosecuted. The criminal threshold is now lower than before.

The new rules also clearly define the criminal threshold for trademark disputes. Using trademark on the same class of goods without registered trademark owner's authorization; illegal business value achieving 50,000 yuan or illegally earning 30,000 yuan will be placed on file and prosecuted. The provision also applies to cases as counterfeiting more than two patents, illegal business value reaching 30,000 yuan or illegally earning 20,000 yuan.

 (China IP News)