The implementation by China(Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone of a series of policies which promotes trade liberalization, such as “inside the territory while outside the customs control of duties†and “frontier openingâ€, on the one hand, provides a great convenience for international goods to transit through China(Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, on the other hand, give lawbreakers chances to take advantage of relaxed oversight and the lack of transparency in the zone to facilitate counterfeiting, piracy and other illegal activities. So it is necessary for China to supervise intellectual property regarding goods in-transit, so as to avoid China(Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone to become a haven of goods in-transit infringing intellectual property rights. However, it may lead to conflictions between that supervision and regional principle of intellectual property rights or trade facilitation. Therefore, these conflictions should be balanced in the supervisions on intellectual property regarding goods in-transit.Considering the present situation of China’s customs protection of intellectual property rights, relevant international rules and its development trend, and practical experience of main free trade zones in the world on supervisions on intellectual property regarding goods in-transit, this paper propose that China should establish a supervision system on intellectual property regarding goods in-transit in China(Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, based on the following principles: ensuring fast customs clearance, limited involvement of administrative power, lowest cost and consistent principle of responsibility and penalty, in which customs acting as the only regulatory body, counterfeit trademark and pirated copyright goods are the regulated objects. Border measures shall be taken by customs under:(a) customs’ own initiative to suspend the release of, or to detain, suspect goods in-transit, when they find indications showing there is liable to be a diversion of such goods to Chinese market; and(b) an intellectual property right holder request customs to suspend the release of, or to detain, suspect goods in-transit by providing adequate evidence to satisfy customs that, under both the laws of China and the destination country, there is prima facie an infringement of the right holder’s intellectual property right. |