Pirate CDs and DVDs will feel the weight of authorities determined to stamp out the practice this year, says a spokesperson for the National Copyright Administration Duan Yuping.

Such piracy is still rampant in some regions of China, Duan said at a news conference on January 11 in Beijing.

Making and selling pirate disks is still a hidden practice driven by easy money and the lure of cheap entertainment. Many buyers are not even aware that purchasing these cheap goods is in fact illegal, Duan said.

It has been reported that during his visit to Beijing this week, the United States Commerce Secretary Donald Evans will discuss the need to curb intellectual property right (IPR) violations in China, especially some Chinese companies' copyright violations on US movies, music and computer programmes.

Xiang Xin, secretary-general of the Office of the National Intellectual Property Rights Protection Working Group, said the Chinese Government is focusing on IPR protection and will intensify campaigns to slash violations this year.

Xiang said the authorities had last year cracked down on many cases involving domestic and foreign companies, such as an Adidas trademark infringement in Shanghai, and a Crocodile trademark violation in east China's Jiangsu Province.

Meanwhile, at a news conference yesterday in Beijing, Zhao Gang, an official of the Trademark Office of State Administration for Industry and Commerce, said some regional administrations of industry and commerce do not know that registering a new company with an existing company name was illegal, so some applications were approved in error.

Zhao's administration is publishing additional regulations to help guide regional administrations to bar groups or individuals from making such applications.

The move has been pushed in the wake of a number of big cases involving trademark infringements that have occurred in some regions of the country over the past two years, said Zhao.

Last year in Guangzhou, in south China's Guangdong Province, for example, Zhao's administration and the National Office of Rectification and Standardization of Market Economic Order seized 12,170 labels and publicity pamphlets which were copies of the famous international cosmetic brand Estee Lauder.

The materials were made by the so-called Guangzhou Estee Lauder Cosmetics Co Ltd, a domestic company that sought to profit in the name of its international model.

The cosmetics company was registered in August 2000 as a private firm.

The company also has a beauty parlour and hair dressing business.

(Xinhua News Agency January 12, 2005)