On November 10, Quality Brands Protection Committee of China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (QBPC)Personal Care IWG held the first offline meeting this year, which was also online. The meeting was chaired by IWG coordinator Huge Liu (Johnson & Johnson), and more than 30 representatives from 16 member companies attended the meeting.
Jane Jiang first introduced Haleon and its products. Haleon was spun off from GlaxoSmithKline this July and officially became an independent company focusing on consumer health, such as oral health, pain management, respiratory health, digestive health and nutritional health. Its product brands included Caltrate, Centrum, Sensodyne, Lbuprofen and so on. In terms of its anti-counterfeiting work, most of the counterfeit products were concentrated in China, Africa and the Middle East region. Accordingly Haleon had set up a special IP department with a total of 40 colleagues around the world and a global intelligence network, continuously monitor and investigate to confirm crackdowns, and actively established cooperation mechanisms with law enforcement authorities, industry organizations and online platforms. Finally, she shared the tips on identifying the authenticity of Sensodyne, including telephone inquiries, product series names, logistics codes and other information.
Then Jerry Yang introduced the Alliance Pharma company and its latest efforts in IP protection. The company had adopted a light-asset business model with R&D, production and logistics outsourced. Currently the sales of Kelo-cote, its mostly-infringed product, were concentrated in the mainstream, which also had the problem of trading on WeChat after the redirecting by platforms. At present, the brand protection team was trying to explore the rules and strive to achieve effective crackdowns while looking forward to strengthening cooperation with the IWG members on issues of common concern.
After that, the participants discussed issues, such as the disposal of counterfeit goods, the cost-sharing mechanism of disposal, and the handling of fake goods in community group purchase links. On the issue of counterfeit disposal and cost-sharing, due to different product specifications, participants expected member companies with relevant cases to sort out the relevant rules and find a solution through the cooperation among IWG members. With regard to the dilemma that the platform had a long processing cycle and it was difficult to obtain supplier information in offline investigation, the participants held that the platform and the right holders are not antagonistic, and the right holders should take advantage of existing resources to communicate with the platforms’ business teams or through other ways to achieve cooperation and a win-win situation.
The participants then discussed the IWG activity plan in the following months and reached the consensus. Firstly, during the QBPC Nansha Cross-Border IP Protection Forum in December, the IWG would visit Nansha Custom, Ningbo Custom and other. Secondly, IWG looked forward to holding corresponding activities in cooperation with the Customs Committee next year to conduct in-depth communication with the customs authorities on issues of general concern. Thirdly, if members were interested in it, IWG would consider conducting in-depth discussions with Alibaba and the Market Supervision and Administration, or feedback directly to the relevant authorities through the QBPC.
In the end, Huge Liu thanked speakers and delegates for their support and looked forward to seeing them again in December.