Source: SIPO              Date: 2007/10/10

1999 saw a considerable achievement in law enforcement by China's Administrations for Industry and Commerce (AIC) at all levels. According to the statistics, during the past year 32298 trademark related illegal activities have been cracked down, among which 16938 cases were in relation to infringement and counterfeit. The AICs totally seized and removed 206 million sets of trademark labels, confiscated 4400 pieces of models, print plates and other tools directly used in trademark infringements; and they imposed 106 million RMB yuan (US$ 12.8 million) as fines upon infringers, awarded 5.7 million RMB yuan (US$ 0.7 million) as damages to trademark owners, and handed over 21 persons to the state prosecutors. 

As regards the foreign-related trademarks, last year the AICs at all levels have altogether applied sanction to 1810 cases of infringement and counterfeit, an increase of 550 cases by 44 per cent over the year 1998. For instance, in the case of infringement upon "BARBIE" and "MATTEL" that handled by the Shantou AIC of South China's Guangdong Province, the infringer was fined up to 2 million RMB yuan. The Tongzhou Branch Office of Beijing AIC handled a serious case in which nearly ten well-known trademarks, such as "NIKE", were counterfeited and they laid over 400,000 RMB yuan of fines upon the infringer. By reaching an agreement entitled "Striking the counterfeit and backing the well-known" with trademark owners, the Chengdu AIC of Southwest China' Sichuan Province ex officio found out and cracked down on a number of foreign-related trademark infringement acts, which won them high praise from the trademark owners.