On April 25, on the occasion of the 24th World Intellectual Property Day, Douyin E-commerce held an open day for intellectual property protection in Shanghai, and released the "2023-2024 Douyin E-commerce Intellectual Property Protection Observation Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), presenting the achievements of the governance of Douyin e-commerce platform in the past year, as well as excellent cases and suggestions for the industry's general reference. It is reported that the main content of the report was written by 14 brand observers from eight key industries such as digital, clothing, books, food, beauty, outdoor, and alcohol. Representatives of more than 80 institutions and brands, including China Children's Press and Publication Group, Red Bull, Xiaomi, Apple, and Perfect Diary, attended the event.
Ma Lei, head of the governance of the Douyin e-commerce platform, delivered a speech at the scene and issued a certificate of performance to the observers. Ma Lei said that Douyin e-commerce has been continuously investing in the evolution of the intellectual property protection system from the aspects of access mechanism, rights protection tools, rule system and monitoring means. At the same time, the platform promotes multi-party co-governance capabilities through open cooperation, public education, and assistance in combat.
Caption: Ma Lei, head of the governance of the Douyin e-commerce platform, delivered a speech at the event
It is understood that in order to comprehensively improve the consumer experience, reduce the incidence of counterfeiting, piracy and infringement, and protect the intellectual property rights of brand rights holders, Douyin e-commerce pioneered the "intellectual property protection observer mechanism" in the industry, and officially launched it on World Intellectual Property Day in 2023. ”
Under this mechanism, the platform continues to invite brand rights holders from different industries to become "industry observers" and explore solutions from their own perspectives. Industry observers and law firms will form an "observation committee" to objectively supervise and evaluate the platform's intellectual property protection work. Observers will also submit publicly signed views on the platform's initiatives, which will be compiled by the firm to produce an annual observation report.
At the event, Cai Xiaomeng, a partner of Beijing Shining Law Firm, the reporting agency, interpreted this year's report for the participants.
Cai Xiaomeng said that in the process of carrying out intellectual property protection work, Douyin e-commerce pays equal attention to rules and enforcement. In dealing with the problem of counterfeit goods, the platform insisted on extending to the upstream of the industrial chain and cooperated with relevant departments to complete offline crackdowns, which largely solved the pain points of brand rights holders, and effectively stopped and eliminated the occurrence and spread of infringements from the source, and achieved good social results.
Caption: Cai Xiaomeng, partner of Beijing Shining Law Firm, interprets the report
Taking the book industry as an example, in 2023, a number of publishing houses will cooperate with Douyin e-commerce in piracy control. Through the clues provided by the rights holder, the Douyin e-commerce intellectual property protection team identified the suspected infringing stores through analysis and assisted the relevant departments to carry out offline crackdowns. It is reported that during the special operation, the police handled the case in a total of 8 cases, arrested 25 criminal suspects, and the amount involved exceeded 15 million yuan.
Similar cases have been seen in the beauty industry's activism. In 2023, the Perfect Diary brand has received a number of consumer complaints, alleging that some anchors use the photos of their brand's offline stores as backgrounds during live broadcasts, taking advantage of the popularity of the Perfect Diary brand to sell other products. After receiving the clues, the Douyin e-commerce governance team responded quickly, and effectively curbed the infringement through technical processing and interception.
In addition, during the one-year observation period, Douyin e-commerce further optimized the official rights protection platform IPPRO. It is also the first platform in the industry to enforce both merchandise and content at the same time. According to official data, more than 16,000 new rights holders will register rights protection accounts on the IPPRO platform in 2023, about 1.7 times that of the previous cycle. Since its launch, IPPRO has provided rights protection services for more than 50,000 rights holders and 80,000 intellectual property filing qualifications.
The relevant person in charge of Douyin e-commerce said that in the face of emerging new topics and challenges, the platform will adhere to the concept of "creating a safe and compliant platform order and establishing a healthy ecology trusted by users", actively explore targeted solutions, prevent potential risks in a timely manner, ensure user shopping experience and merchant growth, and help the healthy development of the whole industry.
Caption: The relevant person in charge of Douyin e-commerce issued a certificate of performance to the brand observers