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7 - Trademarks: Capricious Enforcement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2009

Martin Dimitrov
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
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Summary

We never give bribes to the authorities – only shampoo samples.

Imagine that you are a chocolate manufacturer operating in China. One morning you go to the office and you are told that perfect copies of the candy bars produced by your company have appeared on the market. They even bear your justly famed Chocoloco brand name. Where do you turn for help? This is a trademark counterfeiting case, so according to official Chinese sources, you will have three options: enforcement through the civil courts, administrative enforcement through the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, or criminal enforcement through the police. Yet Chapter 5 lists not one, but six different agencies sharing the trademark administrative enforcement portfolio – the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine (AQSIQ), the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), the Ministry of Health (MOH), the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA), and the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA). At least four of these agencies (the SAIC, the AQSIQ, the SFDA, and the MOH) can provide enforcement in this case. In addition, Customs may help as well, should you discover that the counterfeits were either manufactured abroad and shipped into China or produced in China for export to another country. In short, there are numerous options for enforcement in cases of trademark counterfeiting. Yet instead of making it easier to protect the integrity of the Chocoloco brand, the abundance of choices may be the source of many problems.

Type
Chapter
Information
Piracy and the State
The Politics of Intellectual Property Rights in China
, pp. 185 - 220
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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