Recently, Chongqing Municipal Procuratorate formulated and issued the “Chongqing Municipal Procuratorate’s Pilot Program for the Centralized and Unified Implementation of Intellectual Property Inspection Functions”, and decided to establish intellectual property inspection offices in seven pilot Procuratorates from January 2021 to carry out a one-year intellectual property procuratorial function centralized and unified pilot work.
According to reports, the implementation of the pilot work is for the procuratorial bureaus to implement the strategic deployment of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on adhering to the innovation-driven development strategy, better services to ensure the construction of an innovative country, and promote high-quality economic development; to create a market-oriented legalized international business environment, and actively respond to the urgent needs of various market entities to protect the innovative ecological environment. It is a powerful measure to effectively improve the level of judicial protection of procuratorial bureaus’ intellectual property rights and provide the high-quality rule of law products and procuratorial products.
The "Plan" identified Chongqing Procuratorate, the First Branch of Chongqing Municipal People 's Procuratorate, Wanzhou District Procuratorate, Jiangbei District Procuratorate, Jiulongpo District Procuratorate, Yubei District Procuratorate, and Yongchuan District Procuratorate as pilot offices to vigorously promote intellectual property prosecution functions, concentrate on the implementation of pilot work and strengthen all-round and comprehensive judicial protection of intellectual property rights.
The "Plan" requires each pilot institution to integrate the criminal, civil, and administrative procuratorial functions of intellectual property rights, and set up an intellectual property procuratorial office to specialize in intellectual property procuratorial work. In order to facilitate overall coordination, the Intellectual Property Office of the Municipal Procuratorate is set up in the Fourth Procuratorate.
The Intellectual Property Prosecution Office of each pilot court is responsible for handling criminal cases of intellectual property infringement and civil and administrative prosecution and supervision cases involving intellectual property rights. The Intellectual Property Inspection Office of the Chongqing Municipal Procuratorate is also responsible for the overall planning, business guidance, liaison and coordination and professional team management of the city's intellectual property inspection work.
The relevant person in charge of the Chongqing Municipal Procuratorate introduced that in recent years, the Chongqing procuratorial bureaus have conscientiously implemented the deployment requirements of the central, supreme procuratorial and municipal party committees.They adopted the "Guiding Opinions on Fully Performing Procuratorial Functions and Strengthening the Judicial Protection of Property Rights", and established criminal prosecutors professional teams to handle cases of intellectual property rights; improved the linkage mechanism between administrative law enforcement and criminal justice, continued to increase efforts to crack down on crimes of infringement of intellectual property rights and the production and sale of counterfeit and poor-quality goods, and created a seamless intellectual property inspection and protection network.
From 2018 to 2020, Chongqing’s procuratorial bureaus approved the arrest of 131 persons in 71 cases of intellectual property infringement, prosecution of 344 persons in 160 cases of intellectual property infringement, and recovered more than 18 million yuan. Among them, the Gu’s counterfeiting registered trademark case handled by the Chongqing procuratorial organ was rated as a typical case of intellectual property protection by the national procuratorial bureau by the Supreme Procuratorate.
In the next step, the Chongqing Municipal Procuratorate will integrate the city’s criminal, civil, and administrative procuratorial functions in accordance with the deployment of the pilot work, guide the pilot courts to give full play to their role in illegal strikes and deterrence, solidly perform civil and administrative litigation supervision functions, innovate working mechanisms, and extend procuratorial functions. Chongqing Municipal Procuratorate will put the efforts to explain and popularize the law, effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of intellectual property rights holders, to better serve and protect the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing dual-city economic circle, and to maintain a business environment of fair competition, honesty and law-abiding, and innovative development.
