Well-known card manufacturer fined 570,000 yuan for pirating "Genshin Impact"
Recently, the Xuhui District Market Supervision Administration of Shanghai announced an administrative penalty case for infringement of a registered trademark, imposing an administrative penalty of more than 570,000 yuan in fines on Fang Mou, the party involved in designing, producing, and selling pirated "Little Frog" cards of "Genshin Impact", and his company.
The penalty decision shows that from June 2023 until the case was discovered, the party involved, Fang, organized a Shanghai Cultural Communication Co., Ltd. under his name to design infringing card product drafts without the authorization of the registered trademark right holder, Mihoyo Company; organized the production of thousands of boxes of infringing card products in a place in Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province, totaling more than 100,000 packs; and sold infringing card products through stores on e-commerce platforms, with illegal business turnover of more than 140,000 yuan.
After verification by the registered trademark right holder miHoYo, the products involved in the case organized, designed, produced and sold by the parties used miHoYo's registered trademarks "原神", "GENSHIN", "GENSHINIMPACT", "Maple Leaf", "Diluke", etc. without authorization.
The Xuhui District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau determined that the above-mentioned actions of the party Fang and the Shanghai Cultural Communication Co., Ltd. under his name violated the relevant provisions of the "Trademark Law of the People's Republic of China" and infringed upon miHoYo's exclusive right to use its registered trademark. It ordered the party Fang and the Shanghai Cultural Communication Co., Ltd. under his name to immediately stop the infringement and imposed an administrative penalty of more than 570,000 yuan.
During the investigation and execution of the case, the difficulty of case investigation and evidence collection increased due to the high anti-detection awareness of the illegal subject and the relatively concealed illegal behavior. "The draft design, sampling, production and delivery of the infringing cards were located in different locations, which caused certain difficulties for the law enforcement department to investigate." Feng Jie, deputy director of the Cao Development Market Supervision and Management Office of the Xuhui District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, said that the illegal behavior of the parties was highly concealed, and they obtained many authorizations for genuine animations and games in their daily operations, which covered up their illegal behavior, causing the early external investigation and undercover visits to the right holders to be bottlenecked.
In the process of advancing the case, how to find the upstream production entity, determine the actual business location, and obtain actual sales data has become an important breakthrough. After receiving the clues feedback from Mihoyo, the Xuhui District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau immediately launched an investigation, went deep into the investigation, found out the illegal facts, obtained the main information of the manufacturer of the infringing cards and the actual production location, and retrieved the historical sales data of the infringing products involved in the case on the relevant e-commerce platforms through administrative channels to solve the pain points and bottlenecks encountered in the case.
It is understood that thanks to the stable, fair and transparent legal business environment created for the development of enterprises, Xuhui District in Shanghai has become a gathering place for the game industry. At the same time, Xuhui District continues to promote the development of new quality productivity in the game industry through intellectual property protection, bringing lasting impetus to the sustainable development of the game industry. Taking the game industry as the entry point and the "Seven-Party Cooperation Agreement on Administrative and Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights" as the support, we will create an industry ecology with self-discipline, strong momentum and healthy development. Previously, initiated by Mihoyo, Giant, Eagle Point, Lilith, and Fun Orange, invitations were issued to game companies and third-party professional service agencies across the country to jointly establish a copyright protection alliance for game companies. Relying on a stable team and space, financial guarantees are provided to provide strong guarantees for the development of member units and the industry as a whole.
"In view of the characteristics of the jurisdiction, which has many multinational leading enterprises, universities and research institutes, and specialized and new enterprises, we will continue to deepen the exploration and innovation of intellectual property protection work, let new business forms burst out new momentum, create a high-quality business environment, and protect the development of enterprises." Feng Jie said that the Cao Development Market Supervision and Administration Office of the Xuhui District Market Supervision Administration was established as an Intellectual Property Supervision Office, and a professional intellectual property law enforcement squadron was set up in the brigade, a three-level law enforcement system of science departments, institutes and teams was established, and personnel strength was strengthened; starting from 2022, the innovative "Xiangyang Flower Garden" legal publicity salon service brand was launched to provide enterprises with a "package" of preventive legal guidance in the field of market supervision that is tailored to their needs, and has solved more than 900 legal problems for 425 enterprises in total.
