On December 26, the 24th session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress deliberated and passed the criminal law amendment (11), which will come into force on March 1, 2021.

This amendment involves eight articles on intellectual property crimes, which are as follows:

Modification details

Article 213 of the criminal law is amended as: "Whoever, without the permission of the owner of a registered trademark, uses a trademark identical with his registered trademark on the same commodity or service, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years and shall also, or shall only, be fined; if the circumstances are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than 10 years and shall also be fined."

Article 214 of the criminal law is amended as: "Whoever knowingly sells commodities with counterfeit registered trademarks shall, if the amount of illegal gains is relatively large or if there are other serious circumstances, be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years and shall also, or shall only, be fined; if the amount of illegal gains is huge or if there are other especially serious circumstances, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than 10 years and shall also be fined."

Article 215 of the criminal law is amended as: "Whoever forges or makes without authorization the marks of another person's registered trademarks or sells the marks of forged or made without authorization, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years and shall also, or shall only, be fined; if the circumstances are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than 10 years and shall also be fined."

Article 217 of the criminal law is amended to read: "if, for the purpose of making profits, one of the following circumstances infringes upon copyright or rights related to copyright, and the amount of illegal gains is relatively large or there are other serious circumstances, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years and shall also, or shall only, be fined; if the amount of illegal gains is huge or there are other especially serious circumstances, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years but not more than 10 years He shall be sentenced to two-year imprisonment and shall also be fined:

"(1) without the permission of the copyright owner, reproducing, distributing or disseminating his written works, music, fine arts, audio-visual works, computer software and other works as prescribed by laws and administrative regulations to the public through the information network;

"(2) publishing books with exclusive publishing rights enjoyed by others;

"(3) reproducing, distributing, or disseminating to the public through information networks the sound recordings and video recordings produced by the producer without permission of the producer;

"(4) reproducing and distributing, without the permission of the performer, the audio and video recordings in which his performance is recorded, or disseminating his performance to the public through the information network;

"(5) producing or selling a work of fine arts with the signature of another person;

"(6) deliberately evading or destroying the technical measures taken by the obligee to protect the copyright or the rights related to copyright for his works, audio and video recordings, etc., without the permission of the copyright owner or the right owner related to copyright."

Article 218 of the criminal law is amended as: "Whoever, for the purpose of making profits, knowingly sells infringing copies as prescribed in Article 217 of this law, if the amount of illegal gains is huge or if there are other serious circumstances, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years and shall also, or shall only, be fined."

Article 219 of the criminal law is amended as: "Whoever commits one of the following acts of infringing trade secrets, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years and shall also, or shall only, be fined; if the circumstances are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than 10 years and shall also be fined:

"(1) obtaining the business secrets of the obligee by theft, bribery, fraud, coercion, electronic intrusion or other improper means;

"(2) disclosing, using or allowing others to use the business secrets of the obligee obtained by the means mentioned in the preceding paragraph;

"(3) disclosing, using or allowing others to use the trade secrets in his possession in violation of the confidentiality obligation or the obligee's requirements for keeping trade secrets.

"Anyone who knowingly obtains, discloses, uses or allows others to use the trade secret shall be regarded as infringing on the trade secret.

"The obligee mentioned 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."

An article is added after Article 219 of the criminal law as one of Article 219: "Whoever steals, spies, buys or illegally provides business secrets for institutions, organizations or personnel outside the territory shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years and shall also, or shall only, be fined; if the circumstances are serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years and shall also be fined."

Article 220 of the criminal law is amended as: "if a unit commits the crime specified in articles 213 to 219-1 of this section, it shall be fined, and the persons who are directly in charge and other persons who are directly responsible for the crime shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of each article of this section."

(source: Xinhua News Agency)