China prosecutes 8,232 people for IPR infringement

Prosecuting organs across China arrested 5,081 people and prosecuted 8,232 for intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement last year, the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) revealed on Tuesday.

SPP spokesman Zhang Bencai said at a news conference that most of these cases involved making and selling fake registered trademarks and copyright violation.

According to Zhang, the country's prosecutors have been focusing on civil servants who either neglected their duty or intentionally used their own power to cover up these offenses and help violators escape punishment.

Wan Chun, a senior SPP official in charge of investigation, noted that IPR-related cases usually involve high technology and violators are good at covering up their traces, making evidence hard to collect -- especially in Internet-related deals.

In counterfeit cases, some copycats closely resemble the original, posing great challenges for authentication.

Wan urged various law enforcement organs to map out unified methods to collect and confirm evidence of IPR violations.