In the export market, we often encounter risks. How to effectively reduce risks and minimize them is our primary task in the export market. Therefore, cross-border e-commerce sellers should pay attention to intellectual property infringement, tariffs and VAT, customs inspection and detention of goods, and e-commerce fraud, and control risks from these four aspects.
14.4.1 Intellectual Property Infringement
In recent years, domestic and foreign customs have strengthened the supervision of imported and exported goods, and vigorously investigated and dealt with intellectual property infringement. If the customs finds that the imported and exported goods are suspected of infringing on the intellectual property rights of others, they can directly detain the goods.
First, let’s sort out the problems that cross-border e-commerce sellers often encounter in the process of importing and exporting goods.
1. As a cross-border e-commerce seller, how to be included in the intellectual property rights sharing list in the General Administration’s filing system by the customs
For e-commerce sellers, if they hold intellectual property rights, they can protect their legitimate interests. In order to prevent goods that have obtained legal intellectual property authorization from being detained by customs and improve customs clearance efficiency, they can first check whether they hold the compliant authorization of the intellectual property rights of the products.
While checking, you can check whether the intellectual property rights of the products being cleared have been filed with the General Administration of Customs on the official website of the customs filing system.
If it has been filed with the customs, you can contact the intellectual property rights holder and include the e-commerce seller in the list of legal users of the product intellectual property rights in the customs filing system to prevent the goods from being affected during the export customs clearance process. If the intellectual property rights of the product involve foreign rights holders, you can contact the domestic agent of the product authorized by the foreign rights holder.
If you want to find the contact information of the domestic agent, you can query on the official website of the General Administration of Customs filing system, enter the patent number, trademark number, copyright number, product right name, etc. of the product, and you can find the contact information of the domestic agent of the product intellectual property rights.
2. During the customs inspection of goods, the paper authorization materials of the product intellectual property rights holder were submitted to the customs, but the customs review period is long. How to improve efficiency and speed up customs clearance?
Since the formats of the paper authorization materials submitted by the intellectual property rights holders are different, it takes a long time for the customs to determine the authenticity of the authorization materials.
In order to speed up the customs clearance of goods, the customs will recommend that e-commerce sellers ask the intellectual property rights holders to include the e-commerce sellers in the list of legal users in the customs intellectual property registration system. Compared with paper authorization materials that require customs departments to check at various levels, the authorization list in the registration system can be checked at customs throughout the country, and customs clearance is directly required without paper authorization materials.
E-commerce sellers may also encounter situations where the product property rights holders are unwilling to include the e-commerce sellers in the General Administration of Customs registration system. E-commerce sellers can contact the rights holders and ask them to submit written certification materials to the customs to clarify at which port the legally authorized goods will enter and exit the customs at what time. This method can also achieve fast customs clearance.