On September 3, at the 2012 China Trademark Annual Meeting in Kunming, in order to further curb the trademark infringement, the third revision to the Chinese Trademark Law will increase the penalty for trademark infringement, vaulting the max damages from 500,000 yuan to one million yuan.

At the 2012 China Trademark Annual Meeting, an official from the Education, Science, Culture and Health Department of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council, said at the meeting that a series of measures are in place to solidify efforts in dishing out heavier penalties and to strengthen protection of the exclusive right in trademark use. The third revision to the Trademark Law reels in more kinds of acts into infringement scope demanding liability, such as using other' s trademark as enterprise name or the name of commodity without permission, helping others to implement trademark infringement which were expected to be adopted as trademark infringement; it increases the legal compensation to the trademark infringement, and the ceiling of compensation is expected to be increased from half a million yuan to one million yuan; enhanceing punishment on the repeated violations that the violation over two times will face heavier punishment; lightening the burden of proof of infringement by the infringed, when necessary, the infringers are ordered to provide relevant information, such as account, material, etc.

(China IP News)