On December 26, the 24th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress passed the "Amendment to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China (11)" and was promulgated by Presidential Decree No. 66. It will be implemented since March 1, 2021.
The Criminal Law Amendment (11) amends the provisions involving various criminal acts of intellectual property infringement, and severely cracks down on criminal acts of infringement of intellectual property rights. All crimes of infringement of intellectual property rights except the crime of counterfeiting patents are sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment. The starting point of maximum sentence was increased to ten years in prison.
In the Criminal Law Amendment (11), regarding the regulations of the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks, protection of "service marks" was added; and according to the recently amended Copyright Law, the regulations regarding criminal acts involving copyright infringement or copyright-related rights have been revised to strengthen the extent of crackdown on copyright infringement.
In addition, the Criminal Law Amendment (11) has supplemented the types of criminal acts that infringe on trade secrets, added the "industrial espionage crime".
