Shanghai Customs Investigate Philippines Canvas Shoes Infringe Olympic Logo Case

"Olympic economy" has brought unlimited business opportunities to enterprises, but individual enterprises have made use of improper means to make ill gotten gains.

To this end, the Shanghai customs gradually increased the protection of the exclusive rights of the Olympic logo at ports such as ocean and air pport, so that the infringing goods could not be allowed to go beyond the country.

According to statistics, since the implementation of the regulations on the protection of the Olympic symbols, Shanghai customs has seized 11 cases of exclusive rights against the Olympic symbols, and seized more than 15.6 pieces of infringing goods, with a value of 1 million 706 thousand and 500 yuan.

At the beginning of this year, a certain engineering limited company declared to the Shanghai customs to export a number of canvas shoes in Philippines.

On the basis of experience, customs officers have judged that the risk of infringement of such goods is relatively high, thus issuing the inspection control instructions.

The next day, Shanghai Yangshan customs inspected the ticket cargo and found that the actual export goods were indeed canvas shoes, but the shoes were marked with the word "Olympic" and suspected of infringing the exclusive rights of the Olympic logo.

The customs promptly informed the International Olympic Committee of the Olympic logo exclusive rights holder.

After checking the goods, the obligee confirmed that the goods were infringed and applied for customs detention for suspected infringing goods, and the customs immediately detained the goods.

In the subsequent investigation, the customs found that the goods were 401 canvas shoes marked "Olympic", a total of 4812 pairs.

According to the provisions of the twenty-fifth regulations of the People's Republic of China customs administrative penalty, the Customs has made a decision on the administrative penalty for confiscating the 401 cases of the above mentioned canvas shoes and fined 21000 yuan for the parties concerned.

Since the promulgation of the regulations on the protection of the Olympic symbols in 2002, the Shanghai customs has always attached great importance to the protection of the exclusive rights of the Olympic symbols.

With the approaching of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the customs further intensified the protection efforts. Through effective propaganda and training, the customs officers' awareness of "Olympic standard" and the fight against infringement were constantly strengthened. On this basis, a number of cases involving violations of the exclusive rights of the Olympic logo were investigated and dealt with.

In June of this year, the Shanghai customs also investigated and dealt with a case of export infringement of the Olympic logo exclusive disc brake by an international trade company in Jiangsu, and seized 2200 pieces of disc brake marked with "Olympic" logo, with a value of RMB 22 thousand yuan.

While cracking down on violations, Shanghai Customs attaches great importance to the education and guidance of related enterprises.

In some cases of infringement, the "Olympic" mark on the product is the purpose of production enterprises in order to publicize the Olympic Games and support the Olympic Games.

After understanding the relevant circumstances, the customs organized professional personnel to come to the production enterprises, and publicized the relevant provisions of the regulations on the protection of the Olympic symbols to the responsible persons, avoiding the recurrence of similar situations from the source.