On November 7, the Quality Brands Protection Committee of China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (QBPC) held the 6th Dialogue on Administrative Protection of IPR of Foreign Invested Enterprises in Shanghai. On site or virtually, nearly 200 participants including leaders and officials of related administrative and judicial authorities from central government and 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions as well as foreign embassies and consulates, representatives from international organizations, business associations, e-commerce platforms and QBPC members. The dialogue was moderated by Hu Zhan, Chair of QBPC Government Affairs and Public Policy Committee (GAPPC).
Yong ZHOU, Director, Division of Fight against IPR Infringement and Counterfeiting, Bureau of Law Enforcement and Inspection, State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), Mingxing Fu, Deputy Director-general, IP Protection Department, China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), Yunhua CHEN, Deputy Director-general, Development Research Center of SAMR, Jorge Fainstein Day Gastrell, Director, Capacity Building and Training Directorate, Head of the Global Academy, International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), presented keynote speeches. Rendi WANG, Director of Yuhang Administration for Market Regulation, Hangzhou, made a topic speech.
There were three panel discussions, including “Administrative Protection Practices and Challenges for High-Quality Development under the Wave of E-Platform Innovation”, “New Initiatives of Administrative Protection against Trademark Violations and Unfair Competition”, and “Status and Trend of Diversified and Cooperative Protection”.
QBPC Internet Committee Vice Chair Jerry Yang facilitated Panel One in which representatives from law enforcement departments, e-commerce platforms, and brand owners, with their focus on the internet unfair competition and other infringement challenges, advocated the construction of a multi-party co-governance model and strengthening the administrative protection of IP to jointly maintain a fair and healthy market environment.
Panel One
Panel Two was hosted by Leon Lyu, Vice Chair of the QBPC GAPPC Committee. The panel focused on the development and utilization of new digital tools for market regulation and customs enforcement to improve law enforcement effectiveness and overcome the challenge that the large number of counterfeiting and infringement cases could not be quickly identified and adjudicated through manual auditing. Representatives of QBPC member companies also discussed how right-holder companies apply digital tools to interact with consumers and law enforcement authorities to improve overall IP protection efficiency.
Panel Two
Panel Three, moderated by GAPPC Vice Chair Zhang Yan, focused on the diversified approaches of IPR protection. It aimed to achieve efficient and synergistic protection through the combination of administrative and civil enforcement as well as administrative and criminal enforcement. Meanwhile, relevant parties would continue to pay attention to the dynamics of the industry's rights protection and pain points, and discuss the new trend of diversified protection approaches.
Panel Three
Product identification booths were set up outside the meeting venue, through which some members of QBPC promoted tips on identifying counterfeiting goods and introduced the latest trend of infringement and counterfeiting.
The participants also witnessed the release of the Research Report on “Corporate Trademark Granting and Affirmation Management Guidelines” by QBPC Legal Committee Chair Michael Yu.
Michael Yu
In her concluding remarks, Zhan once again thanked the speakers from the Administrations for Market Regulation, Customs, Public Security Bureaus and other IP protection departments for their sharing of practical experience, the enthusiastic discussion with QBPC member representatives in the panels, as well as the active questioning and instant interaction among the participants, which really realized the cross-departmental and cross-regional exchanges and dialogues between the government and companies. She expected that through this meeting, more government-enterprise cooperation and Sino-foreign exchanges would be conducted to further promote the positive exploration of administrative diversified and synergistic protection, and strive for fruitful results.
Hu Zhan
Since 2019, QBPC has held the Dialogue on Administrative Protection of IPR of Foreign Invested Enterprises once a year, aiming to establish a long-term communication mechanism between IPR owners and the administrative law enforcement departments, so as to help the two sides understand each other's work and needs while solving practical problems. In the future, QBPC will make continuous efforts to contribute to the mutual benefit and win-win situation between law enforcement departments and member companies in order to jointly create a fair, law-based, and transparent business environment.