<p>Let's start by considering the principle of building a strategy for protecting intellectual property in China. Despite the existence of international treaties on the protection of intellectual property, there is a problem posed by the flow of counterfeit products in China. In addition, many protection mechanisms have been found to be ineffective as a result of:</p><p>• Difficulties in identifying manufacturers of counterfeit goods in China.</p><p>• The need to provide a large amount of evidence to prove unfair registration.</p><p>• Difficulties proving losses for the population of China.</p><p>However, due to the constant development of the economy of jurisdiction and the pressure of the world community, the Chinese government is taking more and more efforts to improve the situation in the sphere of protecting the rights of patent holders. The most correct and quickest way to protect one's rights is to register a patent in China, since such protection not only does not require much money, but the applicant will save his time. Registration of a patent in China is the most basic element of a strategy for protecting intellectual property.</p><p>In order to coordinate the interests of a legal entity in the field of intellectual property, it is highly recommended to appoint a responsible person for this area of the company's activities. When selecting a specialist for such a position, one should pay attention to the vision of a complete and clear picture of the interests of the enterprise in the field of intellectual property, knowledge of all regulatory and legislative acts, possible risks and difficulties in this area, rather than its education, work experience and previously held positions.</p><p>This is due to the fact that an important component of a successful intellectual property protection strategy is the timely response to the emergence of potential threats to violate the rights of the owner of an intellectual property object. Most often, this position is hired by reputable individuals who have quick access to relevant authorities that work with sellers and other employees to identify threats of copyright and / or patent infringement. These persons must provide the company in advance with a Certificate of Registration of Intellectual Property Rights and Power of Attorney for the most rapid response in case of violation of rights.</p><p>Any company in the course of doing business constantly registers more and more intellectual property rights. Therefore, the question arises about the need to regularly review and revise the certificates of registration of intellectual property rights of the enterprise to prevent various unforeseen situations. Conducting an audit of Intellectual Property or an IP portfolio means conducting an audit when a foreign company enters a new market or when a subsidiary is established. Foreign enterprises investing in the Chinese economy should conduct such an audit in the framework of a comprehensive legal assessment. Experts in the field of intellectual property rights protection recommend that Intellectual Property audit be audited every year. During this audit, the old and new rights of the organization in China are identified by the responsible person for the protection of intellectual property rights, the presence of the fact of registration of additional rights for this intellectual property is determined. In the absence of the fact of registration of intellectual property rights, the responsible person is obliged to start the procedure for registration of rights as a matter of urgency.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>During the audit of Intellectual Property, it is checked:</p><p>1. The name of the brands that are created by the enterprise and / or its branches in other countries, or created at the local level.</p><p>2. Domain names that correspond to either the name of the enterprise or its brands.</p><p>3. Patents for technical inventions developed by the enterprise / foreign subsidiaries.</p><p>4. Individual industrial designs or designs that have distinctive features and are easy to copy.</p><p>5. Software, web pages, articles, catalogs protected by copyright.</p><p>6. Secret technologies, trade secrets, confidential business information and other similar information, access to which employees or business partners is regulated by contractual obligations.</p><p> </p><p>The listed intellectual property objects are protected on the territory of China provided that your copyright is registered before another person and the requirements of the legislation that we considered earlier are complied with.</p><p>In China, you can register a trademark, copyright and design in the customs authorities of the jurisdiction. This will allow for the detection by the customs authorities of goods that threaten the rights registered in the country, to immediately report this fact to the owner of the right to carry out further measures and actions to eliminate the threat of copyright infringement. Also, if the owner discovers the rights of shipment of counterfeit products, information about this incident can be communicated directly to the customs authorities of China.</p><p>For the proper preservation of exclusive rights to intellectual property objects, it is recommended to implement a mechanism at the enterprise aimed at ensuring the protection of rights.</p><p>First of all, it is necessary to monitor the fact whether the registered rights of intellectual property remain valid. The term of the trademark is 10 years, but its registration can be extended until the end of this period. In the absence of the fact of renewal of registration of the trade mark, you automatically lose all exclusive rights to it. For domain names, despite the simplicity and relative cheapness of their registration, a fee is charged for the preservation of rights for the registered person for the domain name. The patent for industrial designs and designs is 10 years old, for inventions - 20 years. However, each year a fee is introduced to extend the validity of the patent.</p><p>Also, this mechanism allows the enterprise to initiate measures to prevent the registration of rights by the other party, violating its rights. Applications for registration of trademarks are considered by TRAB (Trademark Bureau or the Trademark Office) and checks for similarity with previously registered trademarks. After consideration of the application in the "Trademark Gazette", the relevant information is published. A third party may appeal a decision within a certain period. We discussed the registration of trademarks in previous articles in more detail. So let's move on to domain names.</p><p>When registering a domain name by a third unscrupulous party, the procedure for returning a domain name to a bona fide party is launched more quickly than by a bona fide owner, which is fairly simple provided that it starts for 2 years from the date of domain registration. Otherwise, the domain name will be returned only through a judicial process through filing a civil lawsuit. It is possible to cancel registration of a domain estate by a court decision. In order to avoid such situations, you should regularly look through lists of domain names that are of interest to the company.</p><p>Tracking encroachments on patent rights is a more complex procedure due to the complexity of the technical device. More often than not, enterprises wait for the occurrence of an infringement of rights and claim to the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) about the invalidity of the patent. Such a mechanism is most effective in the case of protection of industrial designs and design. In connection with the fact that, in essence, the rights are not reviewed in the process of challenging, most often the court decides to terminate such rights on the basis of their validity. In the case of patents for an invention, everything is much more complicated, but many companies still monitor the publication of new, competing inventions.</p><p>Summarizing the above, we will outline the measures of the owner of intellectual property rights in violation of his rights. They depend on:</p><p>• The nature of the violation.</p><p>• The severity of the violation.</p><p>• Evidence of a violation.</p><p>The person responsible for making the decision to initiate a response must clearly understand the current situation and know a number of actions possible with such a situation.</p><p>Consider the most frequently used measures for the protection of intellectual property rights:</p><p>1. Collect evidence.</p><p>2. Based on the collected evidence, the offender is warned of the company's intention to file a lawsuit in court and propose to resolve the current situation peacefully.</p><p>3. In case of refusal to peacefully resolve the issue, the victim shall receive a complaint in order to obtain a court injunction in:</p><p>• Administration for Industry and Commerce,</p><p>• Bureau of Quality and Technology Control,</p><p>• Office of Intellectual Property,</p><p>• Office of Copyright / Customs Office.</p><p>4. Also, or instead of filing a complaint, the victim submits to the People's Court a civil action to obtain a judicial injunction on the detected violation with recovery of compensation from the infringer of the damage caused.</p><p>Due to competent training, the company will be able to respond quickly to the detection of a violation. Preparation of the enterprise is:</p><ul><li>Prepared and signed power of attorney.</li><li>Obtaining a Certificate of Intellectual Property Rights.</li><li>Collecting other necessary documentation to take action in case of a violation.</li></ul><p>The effectiveness of the measures taken in the event of a violation detection and prevention of the company's losses is possible only with the fastest possible collection of information on potential violations. Monitoring of the market to identify possible violations should be carried out according to the type of enterprise and the type of products produced by it. Monitoring is the task of sellers who communicate directly with customers and can learn about competing products. A number of companies designate one officer responsible for monitoring violations in the worldwide Internet. Each enterprise should clearly define for itself which type of monitoring is right for it, taking into account the emphasis on earlier detection of violations of rights and the transfer of this information for taking response measures to the manager for managing intellectual property.</p>