Online Interview
Topic: Strengthening Customs IPR Enforcement to Protect Enterprise Innovation
Time:10:00 AM (Fri) April 25, 2014
Special Guests:Qiao Jinming, Party Leadership Group Member and Deputy Director General of Jiangmen Customs District; Liu Yang, Deputy Director of the Division of Regulations, Guangdong Sub-Administration of the General Administration of Customs
Online Interview Photos
Strengthening Customs IPR Enforcement to Protect Enterprise Innovation
[Wang Hua]: Hello, netizens, welcome to China Customs Online Interview! I’m Wang Hua. Tomorrow is April 26, the World’s Intellectual Property Right Day. Here is Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province, a city known as the “No.1 Hometown of Overseas Chinese”, and we are joined by Customs Directors Qiao Jinming and Liu Yang to talk about Customs enforcement of intellectual property right, i.e. IPR for short. Welcome you both! 04/25/2014 10:00:02
[Qiao Jinming]: Hello, Ms. Wang and all net friends! I am glad to talk to you via the portal of China Customs. 04/25/2014 10:00:30
[Liu Yang]: Hello! 04/25/2014 10:00:47
[Wang Hua]: Mr. Qiao, many people know cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but not so many know Jiangmen. I know this is a place known as the “No.1 Hometown of Overseas Chinese”. Would you please make a brief introduction to the city first? 04/25/2014 10:01:45
[Qiao Jinming]: OK! Jiangmen City is situated north to Zhuhai City and south to Guangzhou City, and a key artery connecting Hong Kong, Macao and the Pearl River Delta with the west of Guangdong Province and the provinces in Southwest China. It is known as the “hometown of overseas Chinese”, with over 3.7 million expatriates and compatriots living abroad or in Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR or Taiwan Province, while it only has a population of about 4.4million. Jiangmen is the ancestral home of many great figures such as Liang Qichao, Liang Sicheng and Gary Locke and many stars from Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR and Taiwan Province, such as Andy Lau, Tony Leung and Chow Yun-Fat. 04/25/2014 10:02:32
[Qiao Jinming]: Foreign trade is active in Jiangmen. In 2013, Jiangmen had a total import-export value of approximately USD20 Billion and a total volume of freight traffic of more than 21 million tons. Moreover, Jiangmen is one of the pilot cities where IPR enforcement project is carried out, as well as an export base in Guangdong Province for food, bathroom products, household appliance, motorcycle and other products, the hometown to some famous national brands such as TIANDI No.1, Vinda Paper, Victory City, Lee Kum Kee, Hisense, Jinling Electrical Appliance, Huayi Bathroom, and Haojue Motorcycle. 04/25/2014 10:03:14
[Wang Hua]: There are so many celebrities and famous brands coming out of Jiangmen. I heard that your Customs has detected a big infringement case involving export batteries. Would you please tell us the details? 04/25/2014 10:04:02
[Qiao Jinming]: It is the case with the biggest seizure and highest value related to infringement through using similar trademark that Jiangmen Customs has detected in recent years. We seized 2.72 million dry batteries with a total value of RMB 550,000. Let’s say, if we use the D-size batteries we’ve seized to shine the torches, these batteries can meet the needs of a million torches. 04/25/2014 10:04:42
[Qiao Jinming]: In September 2013, an enterprise reported that a firm in JIangmen was passing batteries off as its brand-name products and exporting them to foreign countries.. In our initial investigation, we found out that the firm concerned had no right to import and export goods, and had no export record of the battery of the said brand. So we contacted the informer to verify the relevant information. Following the information provided, we found accidentally a battery tag carrying the trademark of “SONWAEE” in the workshop, with the letters “EE” magnified remarkably. 04/25/2014 10:06:16
[Qiao Jinming]: We were aware of that there might be something wrong, and carefully compared it with other battery brands. Then we found out, although “SONWAEE” was registered in Customs IPR Enforcement System, the actual design used was highly different from that of the discovered tag, and very similar to that of the “SUNWATT” trademark registered by Guangxi Wuzhou Sunwatt Battery Co., Ltd. 04/25/2014 10:07:40