In order to implement the instructions of President Xi Jinping in his speeches on strengthening intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, study and improve the relevant legal system, further improve the IPR customs protection, and prepare for the revision of the Customs Protection of Intellectual Property Rights Regulations (the Regulations), the Department of General Operation, General Administration of Customs of P.R.C (GACC) held a seminar on April 30 at Wuxi Customs. More than 20 frontline officials from GACC, Nanjing Customs, Guangdong Branch, Beijing Customs, Tianjin Customs, Dalian Customs, Shanghai Customs, and representatives from 20 QBPC member companies attended the meeting.
Mr. Huang Jianhua, Director of the General Business Department explained the Regulations’ background and significance to the participants. The IPR protection was undergoing profound changes both in China and abroad. Especially in the past two years, the judicial organs of China had issued new plans, laws, regulations, and judicial interpretations on IPR protection. The revision of the Regulations was of great significance to the protection of IPR. He also expressed appreciation to QBPC for its great contribution to IPR protection in China. As a professional domestic IPR organization, QBPC had paid close attention to the policies, laws and regulations related to IPR protection, and put forward a lot of constructive opinions and suggestions. The participation of QBPC members would help ensure the comprehensiveness and feasibility of the revision.
The research team member, AllBright Law Offices Senior Partner Sean Jia elaborated on the necessity of revision, principles and main issues. He mentioned that the study, revision and improvement of the Regulations would be in line with the needs of various enterprises for border protection. The revision should be consistent with the strong, broad and efficient customs IPR enforcement, and be carried out in accordance with the principle of coordination. Meanwhile, the enforcement experience should be reviewed to improve the level of legal basis of law enforcement measures. Talking about the problems to be fixed by the revision, Jia specifically mentioned the guarantee, the payment of storage fees, the disposal of confiscated goods, the investigation period of 30 working days, the protection of patent rights, information disclosure, administrative penalties, the channel of luggage and mail, and other key issues of concern to the QBPC members.
There followed a free discussion, in which representatives of ABRO, Amazon Kindle Business, Emerson, Johnson & Johnson, PUMA, LEGO and other member companies raised a lot of questions with value from the entity to the procedure, and from the theory to the practice. The questions covered the protection of copyright and design patent rights, the use and upgrade of the filing system, the optimization of inspection procedures, the tracking and seizure on key air routes, risk control and cooperation. The customs officials patiently answered the members’ questions. Meanwhile some members put forward practical solutions to some problems, which received positive feedback from the customs.
QBPC Customs Committee Chair Alan Liu and Vice Chair Angela Shi made comments that the revision of the Regulations aimed at better practicing the customs' IPR protection. They expected closer cooperation between QBPC enterprises and local customs, e.g. the customs trainings, the exchanges on the risk control in a specific industry, and cross-border infringement investigation cooperation. The seminar could help build a platform of cooperation and exchange between right holders and customs. The revision could help promote China's customs IPR protection and push forward border enforcement.