Action Plan for the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights Owned by Foreign-invested Enterprises (“Action Plan”) has been released on 18th Sep., 2017

The Ministry of Public Security, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and other nine national departments have jointly released the “Action Plan”, in which, 12 departments decided to conduct joint actions, seriously investigate and fight against infringements and crimes on IPR owned by foreign-invested enterprises during Sep. to Dec. 2017. This is the first action promoted by the Chinese government on protecting the IPR owned by foreign-invested enterprises in the recent years. The “Action Plan” focus on 11 key tasks, which mainly include:
1、 Crack down on crimes of trade secrets infringement. The “Action Plan” has strengthened the administrative protection of trade secrets, and specified that SAIC and the Supreme People’s Court shall be responsible for this work according to their own responsibilities. It is shall be noted that, although this task focuses on the crime of trade secrets infringement, however, the public security departments are not listed in the responsible departments. In view of this, it is reasonable to deduce that the criminal cases of trade secrets are difficult to be accepted by the public security departments, but the administrative methods would be strengthened.
2、 Fight against trademark infringement including brand copycats. The “Action Plan” requires relevant departments to enhance the protection of well-known trademarks, geographical indications, foreign trademarks, and strengthen online market supervision.
3、 Crack down on patent infringement. The “Action Plan” has emphasized the following aspects on the protection of patent: (1) the key areas, such as the e-commerce, food and drug, environmental protection, safe production and high-tech; (2) the key procedures, such as the exhibition, import and export, and so on; and (3) to give full play to the role of 12330 as a complaint reporting and right-assistance platform.
4、 Severely crack down on crimes of infringement and counterfeiting. The “Action Plan” requires the Ministry of Public Security to take the lead to carry out a comprehensive crackdown by finding the target with intelligence reconnaissance, and following the target to find more clues.
5、 Strengthen inspection and supervision. The “Action Plan” requires to strengthen the research and supervision of the key cases and the new ones, and investigate job crimes behind the IP criminal cases, such as, negligence, bribery and corruption.
In addition, the “Action Plan” has also released several requirements on the crack down on copyright infringement including internet-related infringement and piracy, the new plant variety right infringement, the infringement of IPR in import and export; and strengthen the security supervision in postal and express delivery service, the work of the judicial trail, publicity and so on. The “Action Plan” requires the 12 departments to strengthen cross-department and cross-region cooperation, and enhance the joint force of law enforcement and supervision.
In view that the “Action Plan” has released the tasks and requirements, there might be several favorable changes in the new cases, key cases related to the IP owned by foreign-invested enterprises, some foreign-invested enterprises who are victims shall catch the chance.