Call to unify the valuation of copy goods in court cases

The method of valuing copy products in intellectual property infringements should be simplified to determine the punishment of the infringement, NPC deputy Hu Chengzhong, chairman of Zhejiang Province-headquartered Delixi Group Co Ltd, has suggested.

Hu said that in China the value of counterfeit goods plays a decisive role in the conviction and sentencing for infringement cases. 

But confusion arises from the different ways of calculating value.

For example, the "illegal sales amount" can be calculated based on different pricing scales, such as the actual sales price, tag price, or actual average sales price, or market middle price. This results in different lawsuits, different judgments and different penalties even in the same cases.

Also, when it comes to selling the same batch of counterfeit products,  retailers are usually  declared guilty due to the high sales amount. But producers of the same counterfeit products can be found not guilty because of the low wholesale price. 

“To solve this problem, it’s better to calculate the value of the copy goods according to the market price of the real products,” Hu said in his proposal.