Workshop on IPR protection at e-commerce platforms kicks off in Beijing

2012/03/27

Relevant authorities should promote IPR protection by making use of e-commerce platforms which feature fairness and transparency in the service, while giving full consideration to the reasonable claims of rights holders, businesses, service providers and consumers, urged by experts at a workshop, which was recently held in Beijing by the Intellectual Property Center of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to discuss IPR protection in the context of e-commerce.

According to an MIIT official, IPR infringement at online e-commerce platforms is a problem seen worldwide and therefore a consensus should be reached in China regarding how to balance the interests of various stakeholders and achieve an ideal status where the respect for IPR and the sustainable development of e-commerce could go in parallel.

Several websites in China have already made good efforts in curbing IPR violations at e-commerce platforms. For example, in 2011, Taobao punished 702,000 offending members and deleted 6,320 online links directed to infringing goods, in which, more than 870 were taken offline as urged by rights holders in their notifications and the rest over 5,400 were dealt with by the supervision mechanism of the website.

(Source: IPR in China)