On the morning of April 12, QBPC Chair Michael Ding, QBPC BPEC Chair Conan Chen, GAPPC Chair Tao Yang, LC Chair Michael Yu, Customs Vice Chair Angela Shi, MSC Vice Chair Ma Mengmeng and Jayden You, and some member representatives visited the Intellectual Property Office of the Shanghai People's Procuratorate. Hu Chunjian, Director of the Fourth Division of Shanghai People’s Procuratorate and the Intellectual Property Office of the Municipal Procuratorate, and Lu Chuan, Prosecutor of the Fourth Procuratorate Department and Deputy Director of the Intellectual Property Office, received the QBPC delegation.
Mr. Hu first welcomed the QBPC team and introduced main work of his office at this stage. According to the pilot program issued by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, it had been decided to carry out a one-year pilot program on the centralized and unified exercise of IPR prosecution functions in eight provincial or municipal procuratorates of Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Tianjin, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian. Meanwhile other non-pilot areas' procuratorates would also be encouraged to promote IPR prosecution work in accordance with local conditions. The Shanghai People's Procuratorate conducted the pilot in the Municipal Procuratorate, the Third Branch, Pudong, Xuhui, Putuo, Yangpu, Jing'an and Minhang District Procuratorates to integrate the criminal, civil and administrative procuratorial functions of intellectual property, specializing in intellectual property procuratorial work and carrying out comprehensive judicial protection of intellectual property.
Mr. Hu introduced the focuses of his office in 2021, including service marks protection, issuing guidelines for enterprises on IPR protection and the whitepaper of IPR protection, informing IPR right holders of their rights and obligations to enhance their substantive participation in criminal proceedings, exploring how prosecutors could support civil litigation and criminal private prosecution, and promoting enterprises' criminal compliance. He expected more communication and cooperation with QBPC and its members.
QBPC Chair Michael Ding expressed his gratitude to Mr. Hu and other prosecutors for their great support and innovative initiatives on IP protection. Michael introduced that QBPC would spare no efforts in exploring the impact of laws, regulations and judicial interpretations on IP protection in practice, continuously strengthening exchanges with central and local judicial organs and law enforcement departments, enhencing exchanges and sharing among members, and promoting international exchanges. Mr. Hu also expressed his expectation that QBPC could better serve as a platform to promote the exchange of experience in IPR protection between China and international IP community.
Member company representatives also raised questions about cross-border intellectual property rights, the new criminal law amendment on "illegal income", copyright infringement and refurbished products, which received detailed answers by Director Hu and other prosecutors. The IPR Office of the Shanghai Municipal People's Procuratorate also set up a specific email address for the communication with right holders, which is conducive to providing case leads on litigation of criminal cases and other information.
Member companies participating in the event included ABB, Amazon Kindle Business, Unilever, Microsoft, ANTA, CISCO, DuPont, Kering, LEGO, MLB, Sanofi, Signify and WAHL.