When April 26, the World Intellectual Property Day, was marked this year, China's new version of Regulation on Custom Protection of Intellectual Properties has been put into effect for two months. The General Administration of Customs of China publicized a series of intellectual property rights infringement cases.

From the end of March to April 13, Fuzhou Customs of southeast China's Fujian Province confiscated 349 pieces of DVDs and 187 "Christian Dior" handbags. Shenzhen Customs in south China's Guangdong Province nabbed a wooden fishing ship, which was loaded with 2.35 million discs. This was the biggest case of this year happened in Shenzhen.

There have been other cases concerning foreign-related trademark infringement: Ningbo Customs of east China's Zhejiang Province confiscated a patch of fake "KIWI" tinned shoeshine, totaling 1,740 boxes or 620,000 tins, valuing 420,000 yuan (US$50,000).

Xiamen Customs of Fujian Province seized 1,415 counterfeit "Rolex" watches, in addition to watchbands and other spare parts.

Xiamen Customs has cracked 26 IPR violation cases since the beginning of this year, and its Ningbo counterpart did eight, their values amounting roughly 1 million yuan (US$ 118,000).

(China.org.cn by Li Liangdu April 30, 2004)