Sanxiang Metropolis Daily, March 10 (All-media reporter Yang Yu correspondent Li Zhaofei) For many people, not chewing a few bites of betel nut every day always feels a little less flavorful. Be careful, some of the brands of betel nuts you buy may have been tampered with and have expired or even expired. Today, the Changsha Intermediate People's Court of Changsha Intellectual Property Rights Connected to the Ningxiang Municipal Detention Center and held a remote online trial of the case of Wang Mou and three other people for the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks and selling illegally manufactured registered trademark logos, and made a final judgment at the court.
As one of the series of activities of the Changsha Intermediate Court's "President's Hearing", Fan Dengfeng, a member of the Party Group of the Changsha Intermediate Court, Vice President and President of the Changsha Intellectual Property Court, served as the presiding judge. It is also the first case in our province to make counterfeit betel nuts by means of "packages", which offends the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks and is criminalized.
Advent betel nut "makeover" for sale
"The shelf life of betel nut is 2 months, and the betel nut company basically stipulates that it is not allowed to sell after about one month of leaving the factory, and dealers and salesmen will process the betel nut at a low price for more than one month." At the trial, the defendant of the original trial, Wang Mou, said that he added a lot of WeChat groups that do betel nut business, and every day someone in the group will post shipment news, and if the price is right, he will buy naked bags and bulk betel nuts.
At the same time, Wang contacted the merchants who made betel nut packaging and lottery tickets on the Internet, purchased a sealing machine, and rented a façade on Chuhu East Road, a paved street in Ningxiang City. From December 2019 to April 2021, Wang, without obtaining the permission of the registered trademark rights holder, adopted the method of "package" to produce counterfeit "Taste King", "Wu Zi Drunk" and "Mouth" betel nut.
During the period, he used WeChat and other channels to sell betel nuts to Chengdu, Fuzhou, Shandong and other places, and the amount of illegal operation reached more than 490,000 yuan, and the illegal profit was 50,000 yuan. On April 9, 2021, Wang was arrested, and Zhang was also captured. After investigation, Zhang Mou was responsible for the production and sale of counterfeit "Taste King" and "Wu Zi Drunk" betel nut, the amount of illegal operation reached more than 130,000 yuan, and the illegal profit was 10,000 yuan. In May of the same year, Ye Moujie, who had sold 113,600 counterfeit "Taste King" and "Wu Zi Drunk" betel nut bags to Zhang, chose to turn himself in.
Three people were sentenced, and the original judgment was upheld in the second instance
In October 2021, the Yuelu District People's Court ruled in the first instance that Wang and Zhang used the same trademark as their registered trademark on the same kind of goods without the permission of the owner of the registered trademark, which constituted the crime of counterfeiting a registered trademark; Ye Moujie's sale of illegally manufactured registered trademark marks constituted the crime of selling illegally manufactured registered trademark marks. As a result, the first instance sentenced Wang to three years and two months in prison and fined him 250,000 yuan; sentenced Zhang to one year and four months in prison and a fine of 70,000 yuan; and sentenced Ye Moujie to one year and four months in prison and a fine of 6,000 yuan. Wang Mou and Ye Moujie were not satisfied with the judgment and filed an appeal.
Today, at the Ningxiang Municipal People's Court, the Changsha Intermediate People's Court and the Changsha Intellectual Property Court publicly tried the case.
The court of second instance held that, with regard to the fine, the original judgment adopted the fact that the public prosecution organ accused Wang, Zhang, and Ye of illegally profiting "about 50,000 yuan", "about 10,000 yuan" and "more than 1,000 yuan", but because the price of raw materials purchased by the three people during the crime fluctuated, it was difficult to accurately identify the illegal profits. Comprehensively considering the specific circumstances of the crime, the amount of fines shall be determined according to 50 percent to more than one times the amount of illegal operations of the three persons. Accordingly, the amount of fines imposed on the three persons by the original trial did not exceed the scope of the discretionary scope in accordance with law, and there was no impropriety. In view of the fact that the commodities involved in the case are food that directly affects human safety and health, and the criminal acts involved in the case have greater social harm, the applicable standards for fines and penalties should be grasped seriously. The court did not accept Wang and Ye Moujie's defense opinion that the fines imposed by the original judgment were too high.
The appellants Wang Mou and Ye Moujie's grounds of appeal were not established. The original judgment found that the facts were clear, the basic laws were applied correctly, the sentence was appropriate, and the trial procedures were lawful. The second-instance ruling was as follows: the appeal was rejected and the original judgment was upheld. This ruling is final.
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"'Baggage' refers to the defendant's use of counterfeit brand bags and lottery tickets to repackage temporary or expired goods purchased at low prices. The defendant profited from the spread by selling 'kit' goods. Sun Yizhong, a judge at the Changsha Intellectual Property Court, introduced that the flow of "packaged" betel nut into the market will bring two kinds of harm. First, it goes against the true will of the trademark registrant to use the trademark, severs the identification link between the registered trademark and the goods allowed by the trademark owner, and destroys the source indication function of the registered trademark; second, it disrupts the state's management order of the trademark, and if consumers buy and eat "package" betel nut, it is very likely to aggravate the damage to health and safety. That is why criminal measures are being used to combat it.