In 2020, Xiamen Customs has seized a total of 798 batches of intellectual property infringement cases and seized 4.73 million infringing goods; and the infringing goods were mainly shoes, clothing, bags, mobile phones, power banks and sanitary products, involving many well-known domestic and foreign brands.
In 2020, under the unified deployment of the General Administration of Customs, Xiamen Customs actively carried out the "Dragon Action 2020" special action for Customs intellectual property protection. It focused on intellectual property innovation services on the one hand, and intellectual property rights protection on the other hand, optimized the Port’s business environment, and vigorously served the local economic and social development.
“Foreign trade companies cannot identify intellectual property rights issues professionally, nor do they have effective channels for identification. Foreign trading companies often abandon orders because worried about caused infringement, which has led to unnecessary economic losses." said Zhao from Jiasheng Group, a comprehensive foreign trade service pilot company, at a Forum for foreign trade enterprises. The manager stated the common dilemma faced by foreign trade enterprises in terms of intellectual property rights.
"Since the samples of orders placed by foreign customers are mostly pictures, we usually need to take the pictures to consult with the Customs on the spot. It would be very convenient if we can conduct online consultations," said Lin of the Foreign Customs Broker.
When understood the actual difficulties of the enterprises, Xiamen Customs took the lead, and innovated measures to help enterprises prevent infringement risks, provided services for rapid Customs clearance of legal goods, and took the lead in launching a pre-confirmation mechanism for intellectual property rights in foreign trade orders. In this way, before enterprises accept foreign trade orders or submitting to customs, and make declaration, enterprises can apply to the customs in advance to confirm the status of the intellectual property rights involved, which realizes the advancement of the customs protection of intellectual property rights, helps foreign trade companies identify infringement risks in advance.
On this basis, Xiamen Customs moved the services of pre-confirmation of intellectual property rights, inquiries on intellectual property customs laws and regulations, and inquiries on intellectual property customs records, etc., and independently developed China’s first "Intellectual Property Customs Protection APP" platform, which greatly improved timeliness and convenience that allow companies to solve intellectual property problems without going out.
Xiamen Customs also actively protects the legitimate rights and interests of intellectual property rights holders, and severely cracks down on infringement of intellectual property rights. The person in charge of the Xiamen Customs Comprehensive Business Office said that the Customs’ comprehensive big data analysis, relevance investigation of historical infringement cases, and the distribution characteristics of industries around the Customs area paid special attention to personal care product infringements. More than 3.5 million pieces of infringing sanitary napkins, baby diapers and wet tissues were discovered and seized, which have effectively protected the public's lives, health and safety, and maintained a fair and orderly import and export order.
In response to the current situation of the booming development of online shopping and cross-border e-commerce, Xiamen Customs has carried out key investigations and punishments on infringements in the fields of mail, express mail, cross-border e-commerce, etc., and seized nearly 650 batches of infringing items, including electronic products, watches, bags, scarves, belts and other items.
In addition, Xiamen Customs takes the initiative to integrate the entire chain of intellectual property protection, established an administrative enforcement and judicial linkage mechanism with the Xiamen Intellectual Property Court. They have been closely cooperated through various methods such as training and lectures, subject discussions, and case collaboration to promote information sharing, mutual assistance in law enforcement, and standards. It promoted the unified standards of administrative law enforcement and judicial adjudication in the handling of frontier and difficult issues of intellectual property protection such as parallel import and licensing processing, and enhanced social credibility.
