China and European Customs co-convened the IPR specialists’ meeting in Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province recently at which the EU experts spoke highly of the IPR customs enforcement.
During the session, China and EU experts did some field research in IPR protection in Zhejiang Province. In Yiwu , experts listened to the introduction given by Yiwu Customs House(affiliated to Hangzhou Customs District) on the control process of the petty commodities, inspected the control venues for the export of the petty commodities and the warehouse used exclusively for the infringing products seized, and visited the showroom established by Yiwu Customs House for IPR protection. When asked about how he felt about his trip in Yiwu, Rick Ligthart, Customs attaché of the Netherlands Embassy in Beijing said, “impressive！” , without any hesitation.
“Good job”, Federico Pepe, head of the Genova Customs of Italy, praised highly Yiwu Customs IPR enforcement when he saw with his own eyes the achievements Customs had made on his trip. Although with great difficulty, Federico Pepe managed to leave his comment in Chinese characters in the guestbook.
To protect IPR more effectively, Hangzhou Customs District innovated on their work mechanism by introducing the “addressing source” management mode under which customs control services and relevant policies would be provided and explained at the market place, in the enterprises and at the exhibitions to improve the law compliance of the related entities. By bringing in new philosophies, using updated contents and adopting new style, Customs officers intend to enhance the effectiveness of the training on IPR protection. They invited right holders, Customs brokers and freight forwarders to share with them brand knowledge and skills in distinguishing real items from fake ones, trying to become a more professional IPR infringement fighter. Besides, they paid special attention to awareness raising. Through the means of establishing fix knowledge diffusing mechanism, collating enterprises’ registration information, and door-to-door IPR customs protection policy explanation, Customs officers endeavored to help enterprises get familiar with the whole process of the registration of IRR customs protection.
The measures taken and the achievements made by Hangzhou Customs District caught world attention. In November 2010, FIFA( The Fédération Internationale de Football Association) wrote to Hangzhou Customs District and the subordinate Jinhua Customs House to thank the officers for their “arduous work and relentless efforts” at IPR protection during the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa. JETRO (The Japan External Trade Organization) and IPG gave the award of “Top 10 IPR Enforcement Agencies” to Yiwu Customs House.
“We will continue our work in IPR enforcement and try to make new progress.” said Yao Sudong, deputy director general in Hangzhou Customs District.
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