On September 8, the 2nd Intellectual Property Protection Forum of China International Fair for Investment and Trade (CIFIT) and 2021-2022 Top Ten Cases Sharing Session of Quality Brands Protection Committee (QBPC) were successfully held in Xiamen. The one-day-event was sponsored by China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (CAEFI) and hosted by QBPC. More than 100 people, including leaders of central and local intellectual property related departments, representatives of law enforcement authorities, experts and scholars, representatives of trade associations and enterprises, participated in the activity on-site or online.
Cao Hongying, Executive Vice President of CAEFI, presided over the forum with the theme of "Innovation Leads a Healthy Life". He gave a warm welcome to the guests and pointed out that nowadays cutting-edge science and high technology had been widely applied in the health field. Under this circumstance, it was worthwhile to seriously discuss how to enhance intellectual property rights protection in the health field to avoid infringing and counterfeit products from causing harm to people's life and health while protecting the enthusiasm of innovation.
Yang Guoyong, Deputy Director-General of the Foreign Investment Management Department of the Ministry of Commerce, delivered opening remarks. First of all, he introduced the status of China's utilization of foreign investment. Despite the adverse factors such as the epidemics, the readjustment of the global industrial chain and supply chain layout, China's actual utilization of foreign investment had still maintained steady growth and reached another record high of 1.15 trillion yuan in 2021, the first double-digit growth in the past decade. He said China was accelerating the construction of a new development pattern and promoting a higher-level and in-depth opening up to the outside world. The Chinese government would actively push for the implementation of the Foreign Investment Law and treat investors from all countries equally. He emphasized that the Chinese government had always attached importance to the IPR protection for foreign-invested enterprises, and had taken a series of measures accordingly. Finally, he affirmed the work and contributions of CAEFI and QBPC in the field of intellectual property protection, and wished the forum a great success!
During the panel speech session, Zhou Yong, Director of the National Leading Group on the Fight against IPR Infringement and Counterfeiting (NLGO) of the Department of Law Enforcement and Inspection under State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), made an online speech. He said that in recent years, the relevant government departments had tremendously promoted the construction of a powerful intellectual property country, constantly strengthened the protection of IPR, jointly cracked down on infringement and counterfeiting, effectively safeguarded the legitimate rights and interests of consumers as well as right holders inside and outside China to continuously empower and strengthen a healthy life for Chinese people. In the next stage, NLGO would further strengthen coordination, vigorously protect IPR, severely combat infringement and counterfeiting, focus on escorting healthy life and promoting high-quality development.
In his speech, Jia Yukui, Deputy Director of the Development Research Center at SAMR, recalled the history of fighting against IPR infringement and counterfeiting and elaborated on the existing focus and strategies; Cao Huimin, Deputy Chief Judge of the Second Civil Tribunal of Fujian High People’s Court, analyzed a typical case involving unfair competition heard by the court; Yu Hua, Director of the IPR Protection Division of the Fujian Administration for Market Regulation (Intellectual Property Administration), introduced the efforts by the market regulation authorities in the province in promoting the construction of IPR protection mechanism at the provincial, municipal and county levels as well as strengthening the administrative enforcement; Liu Juan, Deputy Director of Sanming Medicare Bureau, shared the main practices and achievements of the city's medical reform; Wang Jue, Deputy Procurator-General of Siming District People's Procuratorate of Xiamen, introduced the work of the court in handling IP cases and promoting the reform of IP prosecution; Through analyzing the data of relevant cases, Professor Li Chunlei, Director of the Food, Drug and Environment Crime Research Center of People's Public Security University of China, explained the status quo of drug crimes in China from the aspects of the number of crimes, geographical distribution, criminal means and types of drugs involved, and put forward constructive suggestions and countermeasures in dealing with drug crimes.
QBPC Chair Michael Ding (ABB Vice President, Head of IP, Asia, Middle East and Africa Region) shared his thoughts on the connection between healthy living and promoting innovation as well as strengthening IP protection. Michael expected that, through QBPC Top Ten Cases of this year, the audience could have a better understanding on the current judicial and law enforcement practices. According to him, QBPC was full of confidence in the continuous optimization of China's IP business environment and looked forward to working with all stakeholders to jointly promote relevant work and constantly create and upgrade the environment for healthy living.
Etienne Sanz de Acedo, CEO of the International Trademark Association (INTA), briefly introduced the organization, especially its organizational structure and priorities in China. Meanwhile, he highly valued the cooperation with QBPC. He also made the statement that INTA attached great importance to the development of China's intellectual property protection. As an example, INTA had started reporting on Chinese case law at INTA Annual Meeting as they do with the U.S case law and with the European major case law recently.[HS1]
Victor Shao, Head of Product Security from SANOFI China, presided over the panel discussion on "IPR Protection Practice". Xing Guangyong from Xiamen Customs Regulation Department, Captain Xu Haifeng from the First Detachment of Tianjin Public Security Bureau's Environment, Food and Drug Protection Corps, and Deputy Captain Shen Qicheng of Yiwu Public Security Bureau's Food, Drug, Environment and Intellectual Property Crime Investigation Brigade gave presentations on "Trends of Counterfeit Drugs and Infringing Medical Devices" and "the Effectiveness of Evidence in Drug and Medical Device Infringement Litigation" and had a lively discussion.
In 2021-2022 QBPC Top Ten Cases Sharing Session, representatives from Schneider Electric, Victoria’s Secret, Unilever and Emerson Electric shared their experience in relevant cases. Please stay tuned to the details of the panel discussion and sharing sessions.