IP Protection China

 

China IP protection is one of the most difficult issues facing leading international brands and trademarks. IP or Intellectual property can mean a number of things but mostly it refers to any ownership gained by copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets and more recently domain names.

IPRs (Intellectual Property Rights) have been protected in China since 1979, but In spite of this long established legislation, copyright violation and infringements are very common in China and hardly surprising due to under enforcement. To add to the frustration China employs a first to file system for registering trademarks. Meeting certain criteria can be a baffling process for some companies and full registrations can take years.

To build a strong foundation of anti-piracy and consumer awareness, It will take a lot more than just the efforts of the PRC and regulatory bodies alone. Companies and their China IP protection managers should be proactive in attacking the root cause of copy manufacturing and supply. They should look for practical solutions concerning their own brand and marks.

Generally speaking the options available when a product infringement is suspected or discovered are as follows: Administrative actions, civil court appeals, working with customs or initiating criminal court proceedings. Unfortunately these processes are very expensive, time and resource consuming. They also do not stop the problem from happening again.

So what is the practical solution? Eliminating counterfeit advertisements on the internet can go a long way to stopping the entire manufacturing and supply of a particular counterfeit product . It is true that many traders will travel to China to establish a trade or shipment of counterfeit goods. However, more traders choose to locate goods on the internet through a selection of literally hundreds of trade portals. If a counterfeiter can not showcase his products to potential customers that he cannot remain in business. Most China Brand protection managers are aware of expensive internet crawling software that can locate instances of OLI's (Online infringements). This software alone cannot effectively locate and eliminate infringements from start to finish.

Consider a human based net motoring program and legal administration team that works hand in hand. The Internet Countermeasures Program has been developed by CISAA - Investigators with a strong case history of IP protection China.