Every year from April 20 to 26 is the National Intellectual Property Publicity Week, the Songjiang District People's Court and the Songjiang District People's Procuratorate jointly released the White Paper on Criminal Justice Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Songjiang District, Shanghai, introducing six typical cases, covering the fields of trade secret infringement, copyright infringement and trademark infringement.
According to the white paper, from 2021 to 2023, the intellectual property criminal cases accepted by Songjiang District mainly focused on trademark infringement criminal offenses. Among them, the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks and the crime of selling goods with counterfeit registered trademarks accounted for the vast majority. The defendant mainly sold the infringing goods through major online shopping trading platforms, and produced and sold the infringing goods through some social software. The release of the white paper aims to give full play to the exemplary role of typical cases, improve the quality and efficiency of intellectual property case handling, and strengthen the efficiency of judicial protection of intellectual property rights.
Game copyright infringement cases
Between April and June 2022, the defendant Ming clearly knew that the "Z Mobile Game" was a private server game illegally obtained without the authorization of the copyright owner, but still recruited defendants Liu XX, Wang XX and others as subordinate agents to promote private server games, attract players to register and recharge, and make a profit from the commission. The copyright of the genuine mobile game is owned by a mobile technology company, and the key content interface of the "Z mobile game" private server game is similar or basically the same as that of the genuine mobile game. After review, the illegal business amount of Ming and Wang totaled more than 40 yuan, and the illegal business volume of Liu Moumou totaled more than 90,000 yuan.
Through coordination and cooperation, the public security organs and judicial organs shall accurately determine that the infringing work and the infringed work constitute a reproduction relationship, and effectively punish the crime of copyright infringement. In order to recover the losses of the enterprise, the procuratorate pursued the culprit in accordance with the law, and the three defendants all compensated the victims. In the process of handling the case, the procuratorate also provided relevant opinions and suggestions to the victim enterprise on the management loopholes in a timely manner, so as to help the enterprise avoid the risk of intellectual property infringement.
In another copyright infringement case, the copyright of a game was legally enjoyed by a Japanese company. Since 2017, the defendant Li Mouming has recruited employees to purchase the game console from others and then sold it on the online platform at a higher price. In 2019, we purchased a related game console production line, purchased copied game motherboards and other game console components from others, and then processed and assembled them by relevant personnel, and then sold them on the online platform. During their tenure at Company R, Liu Mouhua and others sold the game product in an online store. After auditing, the sales amount of 10 people including Li Mouming ranged from more than 90 yuan to more than 1,200 yuan.
It is understood that when handling the case, the public procuratorate and law organs dug deep into the upstream crimes and realized the whole chain of Internet copyright crimes and source governance. During this period, the procuratorial organs broke through the difficulties of collecting evidence across regions, realized the whole chain of crackdowns on production and sales, and accurately defined the criminal acts of copyright infringement by combing through the evidence in the case for criminal suspects who were not directly involved in production and at the end of sales.
Case of manufacturing and selling counterfeit products in beverages and clothing
In recent years, crimes such as counterfeit brand food, mineral water, and liquor have occurred from time to time, undermining the normal order of the market, harming the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, and even endangering the "safety on the tip of the tongue". Between November 2020 and January 2021, the defendant Chen sold more than 40,000 pieces of bottled water from Chen's temporary residence, including plastic seals, bottle caps and other trademarks, to Wang, Si Mouhua and others, knowing that the plastic seals, bottle caps and other logos of bottled water of brands such as "Wahaha" were illegally manufactured, and the police seized more than 300,000 pieces of plastic seals, bottle caps and other trademark logos of bottled water of brands such as "Wahaha" from Chen's temporary residence.
In this case, the procuratorate strengthened all-round research and judgment, and consolidated the chain of evidence by guiding the investigation and supplementing the investigation on its own, and finally determined that Chen and others had illegally produced in addition to the illegal manufacture of registered trademark logos. The case is also a cross-provincial and municipal infringement of intellectual property rights, in this regard, the public procuratorate and law forces jointly formed a joint force to crack down, hunt down the upstream and downstream offenders, and at the same time clean up a number of counterfeit water stations in the city.
Another case involving the manufacture and sale of counterfeit products involved an original clothing brand in Songjiang District. From October 2022, defendants Wang and Sun made counterfeit clothing of the brand in the factory in Changshu based on the styles provided by the defendant Rao XX without permission, and then sold them for profit. After auditing, Rao Moumou entrusted Wang to produce counterfeit brand clothing of more than 80 yuan. In addition, the public security organs seized counterfeit clothing of the brand worth more than 30 yuan from Wang and Sun. Since October of the same year, defendants Zhou, Duan and others have counterfeited the brand's clothing by purchasing it from others, producing it by themselves or entrusting others to produce it, and sold them to the outside world through their registered Taobao stores, with a cumulative sales of more than 1,000 yuan.
Combined with the characteristics and common problems of the garment industry in Songjiang and Changshu, the procuratorial organs of the two places deeply analyzed the reasons for the production and sale of counterfeiting reflected in the cases, and studied the path of intellectual property protection of garment enterprises in the civil, administrative and criminal fields. In the course of handling the case, the procuratorate took the initiative to visit the rights company, listened to opinions, made suggestions on the risk of infringement of intellectual property rights that the rights company may suffer in its operation, and actively carried out the recovery of stolen goods and losses, urged the defendant to return compensation, and recovered more than 300 yuan of economic losses for the rights company.
Text: Chen Feiqian
Image: Chen Feiqian Data map
Editor: Han Jiayi