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IPR Protection and Enforcement in China
Copyright infringement:
According to Criminal Law, a trademark infringement is not a crime unless the circumstances are rather serious or especially serious or involves a relatively large amount or huge amount since standard to justify criminal punishment requires that the amount of illegal gains is relatively large, or if there are other serious circumstances, the amount of illegal gains is huge if there are especially serious circumstances.
Counterfeiting goods:
According to the Regulations on the Customs Protection for Intellectual Property, the customs department may remove the infringing features from infringing goods seized and offer such goods for auction. In this way, infringing goods may reenter the market circulation channel.
Exclusion of foreign works from IP protection:
China's Intellectual Property Law stipulates that such works are not protected until they are approved for distribution or production. However, currently foreign publications are subject to a censorship review before they can enter China. Consequently, the intellectual property rights for these works are under no protection between the preliminary examination of foreign publications or performances, and the granting of licenses for their distribution to the public in China.
Penalties for piracy:
According to Criminal Law, penalties may be accorded to pirates, reproducing or distributing a written work, musical work, motion picture, television programme or other visual works, computer software etc. without permission of the copyright owner.
The above IP issues arose when the US filed complaints with WTO against China concerning China's enforcement of anti-piracy laws stating that the threshold to prosecute pirates for criminal liability is very high and that China sets up barriers to keep foreign books and audiovisual goods from gaining access to China's market which have seriously damaged the legitimate interests of American businesses.
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