IP Key China Work Achievement: Enforcement and Prosecutor Cooperation
Fair and effective enforcement of intellectual property rights is essential to EU businesses and right holders in China’s business landscape. However, the new issues in IPR enforcement evolve with the ever-changing environment internally and externally. These challenges that the EU interested stakeholders face include the complexity of counterfeit supply chains, the threshold of IP criminal cases, the evidence review in IP cases, and the connection of administrative and criminal enforcement etc., which require further coordination among multi-stakeholders, particularly among the enforcement and procuratorial authorities.
Since 2017, a variety of exchanges and activities with IP enforcement and procuratorial authorities between the EU and China were implemented by IP Key China to address these concerns which remain prevalent in the Chinese market, including:
Training:
- Training on Cross-border IP Enforcement (November 2019, Changchun China)
Mission:
- Study Visit of China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) to EU (May 2019, Europe: Stockholm Sweden, Rotterdam Netherlands, and Alicante Spain)
- Study Visit of China’s Customs to EU (October 2019, Alicante Spain)
- Study Visit on Cross-border IP Enforcement (December 2019, Europe: Hague Netherlands, Brussels Belgium)
Exchange:
- The 8th EU-China IPR Customs Working Group Meeting (June 2018, Shanghai China)
- 2018 China Forum on IP Criminal Protection (June 2018, Suzhou China)
- The EU-China Intellectual Property Prosecutors Best Practice Group Meeting (May 2019, Europe: Stockholm Sweden, Rotterdam Netherlands, and Alicante Spain)
- Working Group Meetings in the framework of the EU-China Action Plan on Customs Enforcement of IPR (November-December 2020, Online)
- The EU-China Intellectual Property Prosecutors’ Best Practice Group Meeting: Current Challenges in Intellectual Property Rights Cases (September 2021, Online)
IP Key China will seek to continue the exchange and dialogue among IP enforcement and procuratorial authorities between the EU and China to foster the fair and efficient enforcement of IP in China and support the implementation of the EU-China Customs Action Plan on Customs Enforcement of IPR, and the EU-China Intellectual Property Prosecutors’ Best Practice Group Meeting.
For further information on the project or general questions about the IP cooperation on enforcement and prosecutor between the EU and China, please reach IPKEY-CN@euipo.europa.eu.