Shanghai Customs reported on October 10 that from January to September, frontline customs units at Shanghai ports, including Shanghai Waigaoqiao Port Area Customs and Yangshan Customs, uncovered a total of 16 cases involving suspected trademark-infringing solar products, with a combined value exceeding 5 million yuan.
Officers from Shanghai Waigaoqiao Port Area Customs inspect a batch of infringing solar products. Photo by Xie Zongying.
The solar industry is a core category among China's "new three" export drivers, with China accounting for more than 80% of global solar module production capacity, making it a standout calling card for "Made in China" going global. However, some lawbreakers, eyeing the industry's market profits, have attempted to counterfeit well-known solar module brands to grab overseas market share at low prices and seek illegal gains. These infringing products not only violate companies' trademark rights and disrupt the order of foreign trade in the industry, but also damage the international image of "Made in China."
Since the beginning of this year, Shanghai Customs has continued to strengthen customs intellectual property protection and improve the precision of its crackdown on infringement. "We keep a close watch on key commodities and use intelligent trademark recognition tools to distinguish authenticity through multiple dimensions such as packaging workmanship, anti-counterfeiting labels, and process details, effectively cutting off the chain of infringing products flowing outward," said Zhao Fangxiao, chief of the Fourth Inspection Section of Waigaoqiao Port Area Customs.
At the same time, Shanghai Customs has actively opened a "fast lane" for coordinated rights protection: it proactively guides rights holders to apply for customs intellectual property protection recordal and general guarantees, simplifies the process of handling guarantees ticket by ticket, making rights protection procedures simpler and costs lower; it invites brand technical experts to explain the latest counterfeiting methods and identification techniques to frontline port inspection officers, helping them develop a sharp eye for identifying infringement risks.
Shanghai Customs, together with the Shanghai Intellectual Property Office and the Pudong New Area government, established a "Cross-border Intellectual Property Service Workstation for Sci-Tech Enterprises," signed the "Agreement on Joint Construction of Coordinated Intellectual Property Protection," and defined cooperation in nine areas, opening up the full path of coordinated intellectual property protection in areas such as enterprise training, case handling, and information exchange.
At present, Shanghai Customs has created four customs intellectual property protection workstations based on the business characteristics and industrial features of different regions, forming a multi-point, decentralized, and broad-coverage three-dimensional service framework. Shanghai Customs has also joined with Nanjing, Hangzhou, and other customs to regularly carry out shared exchanges on intellectual property protection in the Yangtze River Delta Eco-Green Integrated Development Demonstration Zone, pooling efforts from multiple parties to weave a dense intellectual property protection net for regional solar enterprises going global.
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