Wednesday, May 12, 2021
On April 27, 2021, the General Administration of Customs, China, released the Typical Cases of Intellectual Property Enforcement by Chinese Customs (中国海关知识产权保护典型案例). Registration of intellectual property (IP) rights with Customs enables Customs to block both the import and export of infringing products. The 10 typical cases were for mainly for the export from China of counterfeit or infringing products including clothing, headphones, medicine, personal care products, chemicals and more.
The following are the 10 cases as described by Customs, edited for length and clarity. The original text may be found here (Chinese only).
1. Hangzhou Customs Seizes Counterfeit Pfizer Drugs for Export
On July 7, 2020, an import and export company in Yiwu declared to Hangzhou Customs to export a batch of small commodities such as pillow cores and paper boxes to Iraq. After preliminary inspection by customs officers, it was found that there the contents were actually drug packaging boxes and instructions with the “Pfizer” logo in the container. The inspectors suspected the exporters of hiding the actual drug capsules separately from the packaging, which were found at the bottom and back end of the container. After thorough investigation and inventory, a total of 690,200 pharmaceutical capsules, 96,000 pharmaceutical packaging boxes, and 71,400 pharmaceutical inserts with the “Pfizer” logo were seized. The trademark owner Pfizer Products Co., Ltd. confirmed that the batch of drug capsules, packaging boxes, and instructions are all infringing products.