The foreign companies often find that there are exported/imported products from China branded with their trademarks without any authorization from them. In order to prevent such infringement actions, we usually recommend our clients recording their trademark rights /copyrights with China Customs once we get registrations, which can greatly help the Customs enforcement of the trademark right/copyright. The benefits about Customs recording are:
- The Customs recording is the pre-condition for China Customs to take action against infringement;
- The Customs recording helps the Customs to reveal infringing goods, excluding those from the registrant's suppliers/distributors. Any unauthorized exportation and importation of the suspected infringing goods may be detained by Customs. In this way, the registrant's trademark right/copyright can be better protected with the Customs. After getting the information, the registrant may also consider cracking down on fake products;
- The Customs recording will greatly lower the registrant's economic burden by cutting the amount of bail should be paid to the Customs when customs action should be taken against infringing goods;
- The Customs recording will frighten the infringers;
- After recording the registrant's mark/copyright with China Customs, we can add the applicant's suppliers into the authorized users list in the Customs Database. After finishing such adding, the authorized suppliers/distributors can export the goods with the registrant's mark without being seized. After the termination of cooperation between the registrant and their suppliers/distributors, we can also remove them from the authorized users list at any time.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.