Retail and wholesale counterfeiting in China is a major source of frustration for international brand owners. In spite of significant attention and resources from brand owners, administrative supervision, civil lawsuits, agreements with landlords, and attention from China's central government and foreign governments, counterfeiting remains pervasive in many retail and wholesale markets. It appears that further measures, including criminal sanctions, will be necessary to bring this problem under control.
The United States recognizes that China recently announced a 2007 Action Plan laying out detailed strategies for improving IPR protection. China has the opportunity to achieve real and transparent results for U.S. rights holders through implementation of the Action Plan. In addition to stepping up administrative and criminal action against trademark counterfeiting at the manufacturing, wholesale, and retail levels, the United States calls on China to launch and publicize significant administrative and criminal enforcement actions against optical media piracy, Internet piracy, software end-user piracy, and other forms of piracy affecting U.S. copyright owners.
The United States also looks forward to working with China to examine a variety of reforms that would contribute to improving IPR enforcement. In addition to reforming China's criminal laws as discussed above, other areas that China should explore include the positive results that could be achieved through specialized national IPR courts and prosecutors (expanding a practice that already exists in some areas); reducing pendency and backlog in trademark opposition and cancellation proceedings; introducing regulatory mechanisms to ensure that active pharmaceutical ingredients produced in China are not used in counterfeit medicines; implementing effective, detailed plans and strategies for reducing the use of infringing materials by students, staff, and lecturers on school and university campuses; and ensuring that the resources available to local administrative, police, and judicial authorities charged with protecting and enforcing IPR are adequate to the task.
Customs Enforcement: The export of infringing products from China is of grave concern worldwide. Right holders have praised the achievements of China Customs over the past year in increasing seizures, starting to refer criminal cases to police and prosecutors, and cooperating with U.S. right holders. Nonetheless, the statistics on seizures of Chinese-origin goods at the U.S. border, cited above, indicate that additional efforts are needed to stop outbound infringing products at China's borders. The United States calls on China to begin an aggressive campaign to prosecute exporters of infringing products and to expand enforcement cooperation as agreed at the 2004 and 2005 JCCT meetings. Also, the United States remains concerned about China's rules for disposal of confiscated goods, which appear generally to require that such goods enter the channels of commerce following removal of infringing features, rather than to require the destruction of the infringing goods. The United States has requested WTO consultations on this issue.
Civil Enforcement: U.S. right holders won several victories in civil IPR litigation in China in 2006. However, the United States continues to hear complaints of a lack of consistent, uniform, and fair enforcement of China's IPR laws and regulations in the civil courts. Litigants have found that most judges lack necessary technical training; that court rules regarding evidence, expert witnesses, and protection of confidential information are vague or ineffective; and that
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