Written by Elliot Zhou

Partner, Patent and Design Attorney, Attorney at Law

 

China, as one of the world’s largest manufacturers and product suppliers, exports trillion dollars of products worldwide every year. Among tons of products that are exported daily, some may have infringed other’s intellectual properties.

 

According to the <Regulations on the Customs Protection of Intellectual Property Rights of China>, intellectual property owners could record their IPs at Customs of China. The IPs that could be recorded include trademarks, copyrights, industrial designs and patents that are registered/granted in China, as well as licensing status of these IPs, if applicable.

 

There are many advantages of recording the IPs at the Customs of China. The biggest advantage is that, once the IP is recorded, the Customs of China could help the IP owner to monitor the suspicious goods and to stop the infringing products from exporting out of or importing into the territory of China. On the other hand, if the intellectual properties are not recorded at the Customs of China, even if the Customs discovered any suspicious goods to be exported/imported, they have no right to proactively stop them.

 

The second advantage is that, after intellectual property rights are recorded at the Customs of China, the IP owners could further provide clues to the Customs regarding the infringing products’ names, photos, shipping information, ports where the products are suspected to be exported and infringers’ names, etc. This kind of information could facilitate the Customs officers to conduct a more focused monitoring in their routine work, such that they could effectively detain the goods soon after they found the suspicious infringing products.

 

The third advantage relates to the reduced financial burdens. Specifically, if intellectual properties are recorded at the Customs of China and if the IP owner wants the Customs to detain the goods because of IP infringement, the IP owners only need to provide an amount of guarantee of maximum CNY100,000 (approx. USD 14,286) to the Customs. On the contrary, if intellectual properties are not recorded at the Customs of China and if the IP owners wishes the Customs of China to help detain the goods, the IP owners may have to provide an amount of guarantee tantamount to the value of goods to be detained.

 

The last advantage is, of course, the deterrent effect to the infringers. Thanks to the Customs’ continuous monitoring, the suppliers of infringing products may face a high amount of administrative penalties if the infringement of IP is confirmed. Further, the intellectual properties recorded at the Customs of China will be laid open and searchable to the public, and this will facilitate the public to check online and see if the goods to be exported/imported potentially infringe others’ intellectual properties. This could proactively prevent vendors or buyers from exporting or importing any infringing products.

 

We have helped many clients both domestically and overseas to record their patents, trademarks and designs at the Customs of China. We are very proud that we successfully helped one of our clients to detain a batch of infringing products at Ningbo Customs in September of 2024. For different types of intellectual properties, the Customs’ procedural requirements for recordal are very different. If you have any questions on how to enforce Chinese IPs, or need assistance on filing and prosecuting Chinese patent/trademark applications, please feel free to contact us at patent@foundin.cn and trademark@foundin.cn.

 

Best regards,