Chapter 3 of the Criminal Law, Section 7 of the Crimes of Disrupting the Socialist Market Economic Order, specifically stipulates the crime of infringing intellectual property rights, which includes the following eight crimes.
Article 213 [Counterfeiting Registered Trademarks] If a trademark identical to a registered trademark is used on the same kind of goods without the permission of the registered trademark owner, and the circumstances are serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and shall be fined or fined alone; if the circumstances are particularly serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years, and shall be fined.
Article 214 [Selling Goods with Counterfeit Registered Trademarks] If a person knowingly sells goods with counterfeit registered trademarks, and the sales amount is large, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and shall be fined or fined alone; if the sales amount is huge, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years, and shall be fined.
Article 215 [Crime of Illegal Manufacture and Sale of Illegally Manufactured Registered Trademarks] Forging or manufacturing without authorization another person’s registered trademark or selling forged or unauthorized registered trademarks, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance, and/or a fine; if the circumstances are especially serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years, and/or a fine.
Article 216 [Crime of Counterfeiting Patents] Forging another person’s patent, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and/or a fine.
Article 217 [Crime of Copyright Infringement] For the purpose of profit, if any of the following circumstances of copyright infringement occurs, and the illegal proceeds are relatively large or there are other serious circumstances, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention and shall be fined or fined alone; if the illegal proceeds are huge or there are other particularly serious circumstances, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and shall be fined:
(1) Copying and distributing a written work, music, film, television, video work, computer software or other work without the permission of the copyright owner;
(2) Publishing a book for which another person has the exclusive right to publish;
(3) Copying and distributing a recording or video produced by the producer of the recording or video without the permission of the producer of the recording or video;
(4) Producing and selling a work of art that falsely bears the signature of another person.
Article 218 [Crime of Selling Infringing Copies] For the purpose of profit, if anyone knowingly sells infringing copies as provided for in Article 217 of this Law and the illegal proceeds are huge, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention and shall be fined or fined alone.
Article 219 [Crime of Infringement of Commercial Secrets] Anyone who commits any of the following acts of infringement of commercial secrets and causes serious losses to the right holder of the commercial secrets shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention and shall be fined or fined alone; if the consequences are particularly serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and shall be fined:
(1) Obtaining the right holder’s commercial secrets by means of theft, inducement, coercion or other improper means; (2) Disclosing, using or allowing others to use the right holder’s commercial secrets obtained by the preceding means; (3) Disclosing, using or allowing others to use the commercial secrets in his possession in violation of the agreement or the right holder’s requirements for keeping commercial secrets.
Whoever obtains, uses or discloses the commercial secrets of others while knowing or should have known of the acts listed in the preceding paragraph shall be deemed to have infringed commercial secrets.
The commercial secrets referred to in this article refer to technical information and business information that are not known to the public, can bring economic benefits to the right holder, are practical and have been kept confidential by the right holder.
The right holder referred to in this article refers to the owner of the trade secret and the user of the trade secret with the permission of the owner of the trade secret.
Article 220 [Penalties for the crime of intellectual property infringement committed by an entity] If an entity commits the crimes stipulated in Articles 213 to 219 of this section, the entity shall be fined, and the directly responsible supervisor and other directly responsible persons shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the relevant articles of this section.
In accordance with the provisions of the Patent Law and the Criminal Law, if the circumstances of counterfeiting other people’s patents are serious, the criminal liability of the directly investigated persons shall be pursued.