On the occasion of the World Intellectual Property Day, Beijing East IP Law Firm gained another good news and achievements, and one of its cases was selected as “Top 10 Typical Cases of Trademark Administrative Protection in 2020” by the National Intellectual Property Administration, and Beijing East IP was highly recognized by clients for its professional skills, meticulous planning, quick response and professionalism in this administrative law enforcement case.

The rights holder is EagleBurgmann Group, whose Asian headquarter is EagleBurgmann Shanghai Co., Ltd., and its parent company is Freudenberg Group. Due to the long-term accumulated popularity and reputation, the rights holder has always been faced with the serious issue of infringement, and the false seal products also infringe the legitimate rights and interests of relevant consumers, and may even cause serious public safety hazards in some application fields.

Entrusted by the rights holder, Beijing East IP found that the infringements occurred frequently in various places, and the infringing industry can be characterized to be large-scale, regional and chain-like. In addition, the production, packaging, sales, installation and use of the B2B industrial products are relatively scattered and concealed, so we arranged many network and field investigations and obtained relatively sufficient and deliberate evidence. After a series of discussions on the behavior and nature of several infringement subjects, the first batch of targets was selected as several related parties whose production places were located in Zhangjiagang. We filed the administrative complaint with the Market Supervision Administration of Zhangjiagang Free Trade Zone on Christmas Eve, 2019.

The Market Supervision Administration of Zhangjiagang Free Trade Zone attached great importance to this case, and the law enforcement officers acted immediately to find out the situation through secret visits, and seized a large number of products and packaging boxes suspected of infringement at the scene. After further investigation, they decided to take this case as a typical case to implement the “Iron Fist” action of the State Administration for Market Regulation on intellectual property law enforcement, expand the scope of investigation, and make steady progress under the command and coordination of Market Supervision Administration of Jiangsu.

In the face of the sudden epidemic, law enforcement officers overcame many difficulties. After half a year’s careful investigation and combined with the previous evidence, on June 9, 2020, they dispatched more than 80 law enforcement officers, 18 law enforcement vehicles, set up the operational headquarter and 16 operational groups, and went straight to the scene to conduct surprise inspections on 16 mechanical seal production and sales enterprises investigated in the previous period. On the spot, more than 200 seal products of various types, more than 1,000 packing boxes, more than 30,000 forged labels and certificates, 5 laser machines for printing trademarks, and more than 20 computers were seized.

While the Law Enforcement Inspection Bureau of Jiangsu and the Market Supervision Administration of Zhangjiagang Free Trade Zone conducted a comprehensive investigation on the infringers in the province, considering that there may be a more hidden and wider chain of producing and selling fakes behind the den destroyed by this “Iron Fist”, they reported the situation to the Law Enforcement Inspection Bureau of the State Administration for Market Regulation. The Law Enforcement Inspection Bureau of the State Administration for Market Regulation attached great importance to the spirit of unity, and immediately studied and deployed, thus launching a nationwide intellectual property law enforcement campaign. After unified deployment, on-site command and dispatch in key areas and effective control of the case direction, at 15: 00 on October 13, 2020, the intellectual property law enforcement action under the unified command of the Law Enforcement Inspection Bureau of the State Administration for Market Regulation and carefully prepared by the market supervision bureaus of nine provinces (cities) ushered in the moment of closing. This “Iron Fist” action charged a total of 25 targets, involved more than 10 million Yuan, and 9 cases were transferred to the judicial bodies. The German embassy and consulate paid close attention to the case and highly affirmed the results.

In this case, Beijing East IP’s lawyers include Lin Zhao, Chris Liu, Tianle Gao, Hui Shi, Xiaonan Ren and many other lawyers to ensure timely cooperation with administration and coordination with right holder. In the process of handling cases, they persistently supplemented evidence materials, overcame the inconvenience caused by epidemics such as preparing to take nucleic acid test at any time and hotel isolation after travel, and actively promoted administrative law enforcement work to new situations one after another in the whole case process. They used the Internet and big data to compare and analyze the contracts involved in the investigation process and give quick feedback. On the day of the national unified action, through the full technical preparation and testing in the early stage, they responded to the appraisal needs of law enforcement agencies from all over the country in real time, and went to some key provinces and cities to assist law enforcement agencies, reflecting the sense of responsibility and motivation to protect legal intellectual property rights.

The hard work of the market supervision department shows the justice and authority of the law. We firmly believe that the “Iron Fist” action by law enforcement agencies will effectively protect intellectual property rights and create a good business environment for more outstanding enterprises.

Beijing East IP LTD and Beijing East IP Law Firm were established by Dr. Lulin GAO and several specialists in intellectual property field in the year of 2002 and 2004, co-referred as BEIP. The head quarter of BEIP is located in Beijing Oriental Plaza with oversea branches in Silicon Valley, Tokyo and London, and with domestic branches in Ningbo, Tianjin, Changsha and Jinan. BEIP has more than 200 personnel, among which almost 100 professionals obtained doctor degree (more than 10) or master degree (more than 70) in technical and/or legal field from top tier universities of China, US and Japan, who are also qualified as patent agents or PRC lawyers. Besides, our stable processing management team and senior consultants provide solid support for our service. BEIP focuses on providing overall legal services related to intellectual property in the past 19 years, and represented a number of typical cases selected by Supreme Courts of PRC, Beijing High Courts, and local courts. Our responsive, comprehensive, cost-effective and business-oriented services gained high reputation among clients.