Top 10 Cases of China Customs IPR Enforcement in 2008
06/29/2011
I. The case of Shanghai Customs on exported batteries infringing the trademark of “SUNWATT” and its figure
(I) Basic information of the case
On January 18, 2008, a company in Hangzhou made an export declaration to Shanghai Customs for a batch of primary battery and primary batteries with destination country as Ivory Coast. When reviewing the document, the Customs officers got suspicious and gave a monitoring instruction. After opening the containers, the inspecting officers found there piled up batteries with an identification unregistered with the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China (GACC) at the entrance of the containers. On the basis of previous experience of seizing infringements, the inspecting officers decided to check further to the central section and bottom of the containers and found quantities of batteries with the trademark of “SUNWATT” and its figure at the rear section of the containers. The suspected infringing batteries in the five containers amounted to 1.38 million. After identified by the right holder Guangxi Wuzhou Sunwatt Battery Co., Ltd., that batch of goods was confirmed as infringing goods. Through investigation, the Customs made the administrative penalty decision of confiscating the infringing goods and imposing a penalty on the person concerned under the law.
(II) Recommendation reasons
1. The case was a typical one on the seizure by Shanghai Customs through carrying out risk analysis and initiative monitoring. In recent years, the Shanghai Customs have been reinforcing the intellectual property rights (IPR) training for on-site frontline Customs officers, in particular for on-site documents reviewing officers to specifically offer on-site Customs officers information like goods and enterprises with frequent infringement and destination countries, which further strengthens the investigating and seizing skills of these officers.
2. The goods involved in this case were in substantial quantity and were of high value. Successful detection of this case by the Customs not only protected the legal rights and interests of the domestic IPR holders, but also effectively maintained the foreign trade order of fair competition in port, had a good effect of warning and publicity on domestic manufacturing and import & export enterprises and safeguarded the interests of enterprises and the State.
II. Case of Shenzhen Customs on exported counterfeit “HUAWEI” network cards
(I) Basic information of the case
On July 23, 2008, a company in Shenzhen made an export declaration to Airport Customs subordinated to Shenzhen Customs for a batch of network cards with destination as Hong Kong, PRC by way of express delivery. Through analyzing the existing risk data base and industry dynamic information in hand, the Customs believed that batch of goods were with considerable risk of infringement and promptly gave a monitoring and checking instruction. Through on-site checking, the real goods were found to be 100 wireless network cards with trademark of “HUAWEI”, which were suspected of infringing the exclusive right to use trademark “HUAWEI” registered with the GACC by the IPR holder Shenzhen Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd (Huawei). The consigner claimed that the batch of goods was purchased from an authorized shop of Huawei in Beijing and produced the copy of relevant authorization document to request the Customs’ release. For this, the enforcement officers of the Customs did not relax vigilance, but promptly contacted the right holder for right confirmation. Considering that it was the first time for the holder to receive a notice of Customs right confirmation, the officers introduced the enforcement procedure of Customs IPR protection to it in detail, seriously answer relevant questions, and guided and urged timely confirmation of right by it. Through identification by the right holder, all such involved goods were counterfeits. The Customs immediately detained the aforementioned goods according to the application of the right holder. Meanwhile, the Customs reported clues on the case to the Bureau of Economic Crime Investigation under the Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau and actively completed related work of fixing evidence to coordinate with Public Security Bureau in prophase investigation. The case has already been officially transferred to the Public Security Bureau for further investigation. After the case, Shenzhen Customs strengthened the monitoring to relevant commodities and seized 48 wireless network cards mailing abroad that infringed the trademark “HUAWEI” of Huawei at the Customs office in post office only in the next 10 days.
(II) Recommendation reasons
1. Shenzhen Customs successfully detected this case based on paying close attention to IPR protection, fully valuing the information reflected by the right holder, actively grasping the industry events, strengthening focus and survey on related market trend and determining the electronic module products as one of the key monitoring targets.
2. The goods involved in this case are hi-tech products with high brand value and small volume and the infringements related thereto are more organized, professional and technical. Infringing hi-tech products are one category of the infringing commodities on which Customs should focus in express delivery section.
3. Since domestic proprietary IPR holders knew little of the Customs IPR protection system, Shenzhen Customs initiatively explained relevant regulations to the right holders and actively provided guidance, which effectively protected the domestic proprietary IPR.
III. Case of Customs of Beijing, Qingdao and Ningbo on protecting the exclusive right of Olympic symbols
To perform the Chinese government’s promise of “protecting Olympic symbols”, the Customs nationwide, subject to the unified deployment of the GACC for Olympic Games security safeguard, took various measures to comprehensively intensify the Customs IPR protection efforts during the Olympic Games, in particular cracking down on illegal activities of infringing the exclusive right of Olympic symbols, which effectively protected the rights and interests of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) and created a good off-arena environment for holding the “special and high level” Olympic Games. The Legal Affairs Department under the IOC specially sent a letter of thanks to the GACC upon the closing of the Olympic Games to appreciate the full support of the GACC and all local Customs for the Beijing Olympic Games. As at the end of the Olympic Games, the Customs nationwide had accumulatively seized nearly 300 batches of exports and imports which infringed the exclusive right of Olympic symbols with the value of nearly RMB 3 million, of which typical cases were:
(I) The case of Beijing Customs
As the inbound and outbound supervision department of the Olympic host city, to ensure the smooth and successful Olympic Games and to create a good port clearance order for Beijing Olympic Games, Beijing Customs specifically took special measures at preparatory phase and holding phase of the Olympic Games, which enhanced the publicity and protection for border IPR protection work in the inbound and outbound links and made outstanding achievements.
On April 20, 2008, an outbound transport company in Beijing, upon commission of a certain customer, made an export declaration to the Customs for a batch of clothing through international express with destination as the Republic of Korea (ROK). By virtue of sharp vigilance and accumulative experience of risk analysis, the Customs officers of the express supervision division of the Beijing Capital International Airport inspected closely the batch of clothing to be exported to Seoul of the ROK and found that batch of clothing were 906 T-shirts of the same style with map of China, Olympic rings symbol and “北京2008” (all were in red) printed on the right side and the symbol and website of a company printed on the back side. Due to the obvious characteristic of infringing Olympic symbols and the probable suspicion of infringement borne by the T-shirts above-mentioned, which were exported to a sensitive region during the sensitive period, Beijing Customs immediately initiated the pre-arranged planning of Customs protection of the Olympic IPR. Through the confirmation by the Legal Affairs Department under the BOCOG, Beijing Customs confiscated the said infringing goods under the law and introduced relevant laws, regulations and special background condition at that time to the persons concerned who got adequate understanding of the event, which caused the contradiction resolved.
The infringing goods involved in this case were not in large quantity and were of less value, but this case was of great significance, and sufficiently reflected the politically firm, business excellence, civilized enforcement and scientific development work style of Beijing Customs, all of which guaranteed the successful Beijing Olympic Games.
(II) The case of Qingdao Customs
Qingdao was the co-host city of Beijing Olympic Games---the host city of Olympic Sailing Events and there were quantities of overseas players, journalists and tourists coming to participate in or visit the Olympic Sailing Events during the Olympic Games, which had a great international influence. Fully realizing the special significance of strengthening IPR protection at passenger inspection site during the Olympic Games, Qingdao Customs took various measures to reinforce protection. Qingdao Liuting International Airport carried out several special actions during the Olympic Games, which achieved a good effect (having detected 41 infringement cases, of which 15 involving infringement upon the exclusive right of Olympic symbols).
On August 29, 2008, the Customer officers who were responsible for X-ray inspection for passengers’ registered luggage in Qingdao Liuting International Airport Customs found through the display screen that the picture of one piece of luggage was showing quantities of unusual items when inspecting the registered luggage of passengers on the international flight of Qingdao-ROK, and immediately took that parcel of luggage down to customs inspection area for open-case inspection. A middle-aged Korean male passenger did not declare any item to the Customs when passing the customs declaration counter. However, when scanning his luggage tag, the system promptly indicated the registered luggage of this passenger was the suspicious one that contained the said quantities of unusual items. Customs officers carried out detailed open-case inspection on the luggage above mentioned and found 49 pendants of 2008 Beijing Olympic Games mascots Fuwa, 73 watches with symbols like “ROLEX”, “Cartier”, “OMEGA” and 7 purses with the symbol of “LV”. According to the Korean passenger’s explanation, such items were bought at low prices in domestic for the purpose of selling in ROK. During Olympic Games, Fuwa, as the Olympic mascots, was popular in ROK, while the items like watch and purse were purchased by the passenger by following the pictures of the introductions in a fashion magazine, which were also to be sold in ROK. The passenger, acknowledging such commodities were infringing ones, was willing to coordinate with the Customs for handling and expressed that he had not expected China Customs would so strictly inspect luggage at passenger inspection and would never take infringing goods any more. During the process of handling this case, fully considering the particularity of holding Olympic Games, following the GACC requirements for carrying out the law enforcement idea of combining punishment and leniency during detection of IPR cases, and combining factors like the requirements for passenger inspection cases of quick disposal, small quantity of items involved and no knowledge of Chinese laws by the person concerned, Qingdao Customs put the emphasis on education to the person concerned and persuaded him to initiatively coordinate with the Customs for disposal, which fully reflected the Customs’ rational law enforcement by combining “hit with education”.
(III) The case of Ningbo Customs
To combat illegal activities infringing the exclusive right of Olympic symbols, to protect relevant IPR of Olympic and to create a good off-arena environment for holding a successful Beijing Olympic Games, Ningbo Customs regarded protecting the exclusive right of Olympic symbols as the emphasis of IPR protection work in 2008, carrying out “specific actions for protecting the exclusive right of Olympic symbols”. In 2008, the Customs detected 7 cases on infringement upon the exclusive right of Olympic symbols with 17,721 pieces of goods involved and the value of RMB 1.57 million.
On March 17, 2008, the declaration form submitted by a company in Shenzhen for exporting some bicycles to Beilun Customs subordinated to Ningbo Customs attracted attention of the document reviewing officers. This batch of bicycles was shipped by 10 containers and the declaration quantity achieved 10,000. Through careful analysis of the Customs Declaration Form, the document reviewing officers found out these bicycles were of probable infringement risk: firstly, the destination country was United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is the main collecting and distributing center of infringing goods; secondly, operating unit was a company using outward verification sheet as the name of the buyer or payee; thirdly, the year of 2008 was Olympic year so that sports products like bicycles bore great risk of infringing the exclusive right of Olympic symbols. Thereupon, the Customs inspected this batch of bicycles and found there was the symbol of “OLYMPIC” on both outer packing and frame of these 10,000 bicycles, which were suspected of infringement. Through contact with the 29th Olympic Games Organizing Committee, this batch of goods was confirmed to be without lawful authorization. Ningbo Customs detained this batch of goods under law and made the administrative penalty decision of confiscating the goods and penalty. CCTV’s section---Today’s Law specially reported the seizing of this case and several central and local media repeatedly broadcasted this case in the forms of news, special case and other, which obtained good publicity and social effect.
IV. Case of Chongqing Customs on exported counterfeit “JINCHENG” motorcycle parts
(I) Basic information of the case
On February 19, 2008, a company in Chongqing made an export declaration to Chongqing Customs for two batches of motorcycle parts without brand amounting to 1,680 sets with the destination country as Nigeria. The attached document of the Customs Declaration Form showed the batch of goods was motorcycle engine and bodywork package (complete bicycle parts). Through comprehensive analysis, the Customs deemed the batch of goods as probable infringement suspicion. During inspection, the customs inspecting officers successively found the five categories of parts (“key set”, “rearview mirror”, "dash board”, “head light” and “silencer”) and the engine respectively used the trademark of “JINCHENG” registered with the GACC by Jincheng Group Co., Ltd. (usually called Jincheng Corporation).Among these, the identification of JINGCHENG trademark on “silencer” and “engine” was covered by a fake trademark before inspection and was disclosed on the spot during the inspection. In addition, there found quantities of packaged labels with the trademark of “JINCHENG” inside carton whose outside was identified as “motorcycle silencer” and the size of these labels coincided with the reserved label location of the parts without brand in the bodywork package. Afterwards, Chongqing Customs detained this batch of suspicious infringing goods according to the application of Jincheng Group. The case constituted a criminal offence due to the substantial subject amount. So Chongqing Customs contacted closely with the Public Security Bureau of Chongqing Municipality and officially transferred the case to Public Security Bureau for criminal process in June 2008.
(II) Recommendation reasons
1. Chongqing is a significant base for motorcycle producing and supporting in western China and there are numerous foreign trade enterprises of kinds of motorcycles. Detection of the case produced a huge response in the industry, which not only protected domestic proprietary IPR, but also gave a vivid lesson of border IPR protection for motorcycle industry in Chongqing and raised the IPR awareness of local enterprises.
2. Before this case was detected, Jincheng Corporation delivered written materials to Chongqing Customs, which reflected the clue that exporting goods to Nigeria via Chongqing Port by the consigner in this case was suspected of infringement. Chongqing Customs promptly took monitoring deployment after analyzing the relevant clues and finally successfully detected this case. This was a typical case of Customs’ risk analysis monitoring based on report of the right holder.
V. Case of Guangzhou Customs on exported counterfeit “Midea” TVs
(I) Basic information of the case
On August 12, 2008, a company in Foshan made an export declaration in the way of materials purchased counterpart to Foshan Customs subordinated to Guangzhou Customs for 3 containers containing 1,395 TVs exported to Burma. Although the export declaration form did not mark the trademark of the TVs, Customs officers found the word “Midea” in the specification description on the attached packing list, so the responsible officers at supervising site decisively gave a monitoring instruction. Through inspection, this batch of color TVs was found to be of old style and rough workmanship and there was the trademark of “Midea” attached on the outer packing and TV body, so these TVs were suspicious infringing goods. Through contact with the trademark registrant of “Midea”---Guangdong Midea Electric Appliances Co., Ltd., the said goods were confirmed to be commodities infringing Midea’s trademark. After seizing this case, Guangzhou Customs promptly reported clues of the case to local public security department and conserved evidences, afterwards officially transferred the case and actively coordinated with public security department to investigate the export merchant and manufacturer. Public security department is proceeding with the criminal investigation of this case at present.
(II) Recommendation reasons
1. Guangzhou Customs coordinated closely with local public security department to investigate and collect evidences through going deep into infringing manufacturer, which prevented large-scale infringements from source, investigated for criminal responsibility of the persons concerned, and also effectively awed such unlawful acts, and which became the model of close cooperation between law-enforcement departments and of smooth engagement between administrative and criminal law enforcement.
2. Taking detection of this case as an opportunity, Guangzhou Customs further introduced measures to strengthen proprietary IPR protection, set up contact hotline to provide individualized consulting service for proprietary IPR enterprises, actively assisted enterprises to solve difficulties faced during maintaining rights and to effectively cope with unfavorable effects caused by finance crisis to enterprises, which thereby powerfully supported the development of enterprises and local economy.
VI. Series cases of Hangzhou Customs on exported counterfeit “Tigerhead Brand” torches
(I) Basic information of the case
On January 11, 2008, a company in Shenzhen declared a batch of torches to be exported to the Customs office of Jinhua Customs subordinated to Hangzhou Customs in Yiwu with the destination countries as the UAE. When reviewing the documents, the Customs officers thought that this batch of goods had a great infringing suspicion and issued a supervising instruction; then they discovered that there were more than 60,000 torches with the trademark of “Tigerhead Brand (pattern)”. Such batch of goods was recognized as counterfeit commodities after being authenticated by the IPR holder of Guangzhou Torch Industry Company. After such case happened, through further communication with the IPR holder, the law enforcement officers of customs knew its relevant import and export information of legal products and the situation mastered by the IPR holder that the infringement products in the foreign countries were seized. Meanwhile, in order to further master the information of the marketing sales and exports of the torches, especially torches with Tigerhead Brand, the law enforcement officers of customs made a further investigation on the market of Yiwu and got information from the local export freight agency enterprises and timely grasped the export market trend about the torch. A series of measures taken by the customs made significant achievements. Within 2008, by using a variety of means such as the analysis of the risk, Jinhua Customs subordinated to Hangzhou Customs had made surveillance and cumulatively seized ten batches of torches, a total of more than 310,000 torches which were suspected of infringing the trademark right of “Tigerhead Brand”. The protection work of intellectual property rights performed by Hangzhou Customs has effectively maintained the international reputation and image of the “Tigerhead Brand” and obtained a high opinion of IPR holder.
(II) Recommendation reasons
1 When discovering the increased export situation of the counterfeit “Tigerhead Brand” torches, Hangzhou Customs actively took a series of effective measures to improve the efficiently seized rate, such as strengthening the communication with IPR holder, knowing the more detailed information about the infringing goods, mastering the first-hand information by investigating the market and the freight agency industries, pertinently enhancing the frontline Customs officers’ training and enhancing the risk analysis and surveillance, all of which had obtained good results.
2 The trademark of “Tigerhead Brand” has a high reputation in the world. Many successful seizing cases by Hangzhou Customs through the risk analysis which have greatly inspired the enthusiasm for the national brands participating in the intellectual property rights protection by the customs, and maintained the international image of Chinese brands have strong demonstration significance for the protection of Chinese brands in the future.
VII. Series cases of Huangpu Customs on infringements against brands of Unilever
(I) Basic information of the case
In order to strengthen the law enforcement collaboration with the IPR holder, and broaden the cooperative engagement field of the intellectual property rights protection, Huangpu Customs has established the access to regularly exchange of the intelligence information with Unilever Co., Ltd and its agencies to fully take advantage of IPR holder’s information. From March to December 2008, according to the intelligence clues provided by Unilever Co., Ltd and through the risk analysis, Huangpu Customs continuously supervised and detected 8 cases of infringing exclusive right to use trademark of "Lipton" and "CLOSE UP" which belong to Unilever Co., Ltd. There were a total of 1,360,000 bags of counterfeit “Lipton” tea and a total of 142,424 counterfeit "CLOSE UP" toothpastes. In the process of handling with such series of cases, Huangpu Customs made full use of information provided by IPR holder and actively performed the risk analysis and risk warning; especially in the early Christmas, Huangpu Customs continuously and successfully detected three cases of infringing “CLOSE UP" toothpaste of Unilever Co., Ltd, which effectively restrained the trend that a few of illegal companies exported during the financial storm.
(II) Recommendation reasons
1 Huangpu Customs innovated the mode of enforcement collaboration, actively established the long-term collaboration mechanism of the intelligence information with IPR holder, took full advantage of IPR holder’s information, and voluntarily performed the risk analysis and the risk warning by using the relevant information to successfully detect a series of infringing cases, which played a good demonstration role in the cooperation between the customs and IPR holder against the infringements in the future.
2 In the framework of the coordination mechanism of the intelligence information, the customs and the IPR holder respectively clear their contacts with 24-hour continuous contact to ensure that the intelligence information doesn't miss. With close cooperation of the customs departments, through the mechanism of two-way contact and collaboration and based on the advisable combination of the risk surveillance and inspection, the customs timely follow up the trends of the surveillance and inspection of goods to ensure that the inspection instruction can be executed completely after receiving the precise information. The IPR holders timely respond to and actively coordinate with the customs to confirm the goods and apply for the protection after the goods are suspected of infringement seized by the customs.
VIII. Series cases of Fuzhou Customs on infringing drugs in the exit express delivery section
(I) Basic information of the case
In 2008, for the features of the increasing infringement cases in the postal delivery of the customs district year by year and the relative concentration of the destination countries and destinations for delivery, Fuzhou Customs increased the risk surveillance for the high-risk mail at the supervising site of the entry-exit express mails and parcels to effectively improve the seizure rate. On March 15, 2008, Fuzhou Customs immediately adjusted the focus of the inspection after first seizing the “VIAGRA” tablet from Pfizer Inc. and “CIALIS” tablet from Eli Lilly and Company which were suspected of counterfeit at an express mail from Yongtai to America to enhance the inspection for the exit express mails from Yongtai. Within 3 days, there were 151 batches of the counterfeit medicine, a total of 5,714 tablets seized in the express mails from Yongtai to America and Britain; then, the sent express mails from other regions were carried out a comprehensive risk analysis of infringement drugs, and there were 172 batches of counterfeit medicines, a total of 8,120 tablets seized in the express mails from Fuzhou to nearly 20 countries such as New Zealand, Switzerland, Greece and so on. The above infringement medicines are 323 batches, a total of 13,834 tablets. Among these exited express mails, there are a few of the counterfeit medicines in each batch of express mail; however, there are lots of batches and large quantities, which have more serious perniciousness; in addition, the country, city and specific address of the recipients differ from each other, and the involved range is wide and it is obvious for selling counterfeits on the internet.
(II) Recommendation reasons
With the increase of cracking down the infringements at the customs freight channel and the development of the cyber trade, international postal parcels and express mails are the main channel to exit for counterfeit medicine at present. Such case that Fuzhou Customs seized the large-scale scattered posted counterfeit drugs to be exited, which recipients involve many countries of Europe and America, reflects that the customs play an important role in cracking down the counterfeit drugs trade.
IX. Series cases of Xiamen Customs on exported counterfeit “DIESEL” jeans
(I) Basic information of the case
In June 2008, through the risk analysis, Xiamen Customs continuously seized 6 batches of suspected infringing goods which were declared to export by an import and export co., Ltd in Quanzhou City, Fujian and detained 71,904 pairs of jeans which infringed the exclusive trademark right of “DIESEL”. It was a typical case that the Xiamen Customs successfully seized infringing goods by means of risk management that the enterprise made a single export declaration and made an attempt to avoid the supervision of the customs.
On June 17, 2008, when a batch of closing which was made an export declaration to Egypt in a normal trade way by an import and export co., Ltd in Quanzhou City, Fujian was carried out the inspection, Xiamen Customs found that there were discrepancies between the actual quantity of goods and the declaration quantity of goods and there were 12,000 pairs of jeans marking the words of “DIESEL” and similar D graphics symbol, according to the information obtained from the owner and its agent, the company couldn’t provide a valid, legal authorized certificate, which suspected of infringement. After receiving the information notification of the inspection officer, the personnel of risk analysis, through the risk analysis platform and the H2000 decision support systems, referred to the previous export records of such company and found that such shipper submitted 6 copies of declaration forms with same contents at the same time and the same route to the same destination; then the customs immediately made a decision to inspect 5 containers of goods to be exited. After unpacked, in the above-mentioned 5 containers, the jeans marking the words of “DIESEL” and similar D graphics symbol were found. Upon the inspection, the above-mentioned goods infringed the exclusive right to use registered trademark of DIESEL of Diesel company and the customs made the administrative penalty decision of confiscating the goods and penalty to the shipper.
(II) Recommendation reasons
In order to export the infringing goods, some illegal exporters take an invisible way to attempt to get out of the customs supervision and risk spreading, and a single declaration is also one of the ways. After seizing an infringement, Xiamen Customs timely analyze the phenomenon of single declaration of the enterprise and find the methods and features of the single declaration of the enterprise, then actively make surveillance in accordance with the known information and finally seize a series of infringements instead of being content with the current achievements. After seizing such infringements, Xiamen Customs timely issue a risk warning to each operation site, and the officer of each operation site makes surveillance according to learn of the risk factors and continuously seizes five cases of such series, a total of 19 cases to give a powerful deterrent to the criminals and effectively restrain the further spread of such illegal phenomenon.
X. Case of Gongbei Customs on exported printer ribbons infringing the exclusive right to use trademark “EPSON”
(I) Basic information of the case
On January 14, 2008, a company in Beijing made an export declaration of 41,070 printer ribbons to Jiuzhou Customs subordinated to Gongbei Customs in a normal trade way with a destination country of Cuba. In the neutral packing cartons of the container, the inspector found that although the external package of such batch of compatible ribbon had been marked the domestic manufacturer's trademark, meanwhile, the trademark words “EPSON” of the holder of Seiko Epson Corporation was highlighted in the form of amplification and bold, and part of the ribbons lacked of the words “USED FOR” or “COMPATIBLE FOR” which used to indicate the features of the compatible products before the “EPSON”. Because the products of the printers and printing consumables of EPSON series have a high popularity in the domestic and international market, such batch of compatible ribbon using the trademark in a plausible way obviously has a tendency to mislead consumers, and it is easy to make consumers mistakenly think the ribbon is "EPSON" products. After the communication with the holder of the trademark “EPSON” of Seiko Epson Corporation, the above goods was confirmed as infringements upon the written confirmation, and the application of intellectual property protection was proposed to the customs according to law. Upon the investigation, Gongbei Customs finally recognized the above-mentioned 41,070 ribbons to infringe the exclusive right to use trademark of EPSON and made the administrative penalty decision of confiscating the goods and penalty.
(II) Recommendation reasons
The detection of this case triggers Gongbei Customs to deeply reflect the problem of legal rational use of trademark and labeling for the compatible products; and thus, the customs strengthen the close cooperation with local consumable industry association and actively encourage and support the progress of the development of local consumable industry. The annual sales of the printing consumables of Zhuhai City which is regarded as “the capital of the printing consumables” in the world account for 10% of the total amount of global consumable sales; however, in recent years, because the problems that the package of the compatible consumable products use the original manufacturer trademark and label the product scope of application of the original manufacturer occur, the infringement disputes between the original manufacturers and the compatible products manufacturers are often caused. Based on the idea of “investigate-typical case, educate-industry”, Gongbei Customs inform the office of implementing famous brand driving strategy of Zhuhai City and Zhuhai Printing Consumable Industry Association of this detailed case. Both sides organize the enterprises to develop the discussion of the compatible consumable product packaging specifications and special training of the intellectual property protection by the customs and zealously answer the operation consultation of the enterprises related to the intellectual property protection. For the large consumable production enterprise, the "one-to-one" service is implemented and obtains good results. Since the above-mentioned measures is taken, the number of infringement cases of the consumable products seized by Gongbei Customs declines by 40% year-on-year.
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