As soon as the temperature drops in China Moncler passes on attack with an intensive anti-counterfeiting campaign thorough whole China, with special focus on Harbin, Shenyang, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Six cities, more than 30 stores, hundreds of products seized and 2 persons detained by the Police is the current result of the campaign launched to protect the brand from counterfeits. HFG Law & Intellectual Property is proudly supporting Moncler deploying on the field more than 20 professionals.
Last week (Nov 20-24) the campaign reached its peak with an action leaded by Shanghai Pudong Police Bureau. Soon after lunch time around 40 policemen entered the two markets known to be located around the metro stop Science and Technology Museum and targeted 16 stores identified in the previous days thanks to careful survey and monitoring of the activity of the vendors.
Based on a complaint prepared by the injured party Moncler, Chinese authority will prosecute the offenders under the criminal law given that the offense reaches the minimum threshold for criminal liability. Moncler decided that this should be the way and planned the simultaneous raids in different cities, shops and markets now, at the beginning of the winter seasons in order to withdraw from the market the higher number of counterfeited products. This campaign is only one piece of a wide range of actions that Moncler is undertaking since several years including action in front of Trademark Office and TRAB, litigations in front of the Court, seizures in cooperation with the Customs and so on. After an important business trip in China during which the legal counsels visited the main cities and their fake shops and markets, the famous brand started the first part of a planned series of raid aimed to fight as much counterfeiters as possible. Moncler made its point: they'll not ignore this problem and to deal with it nothing has been left to chance.
The protection of intellectual property rights in China is still quite complex and it will be probably a long battle, however brands – especially brands – cannot ignore the matter and need to play an active role in this battle.
Waiting for the prosecution of these seizures and arrests, it should be noted how important is to plan a efficient IP strategy in order first to protect the rights in China (through registration and effective use of the signs in the China mainland) and then to be able to enforce its against small and big counterfeiting cases.
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