(Adopted at the Second Session of the Fifth National People’s Congress on July 1, 1979; revised at the Fifth Session of the Eighth National People’s Congress on March 14, 1997; and amended according to the Amendment to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted at the Thirteenth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People’s Congress on December 25, 1999, Amendment (Ⅱ) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted at the Twenty-third Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People’s Congress on August 31, 2001, Amendment (Ⅲ) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted at the Twenty-fifth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People’s Congress on December 29, 2001, Amendment (Ⅳ) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted at the Thirty-first Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People’s Congress on December 28, 2002, Amendment (Ⅴ) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted at the Fourteenth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Tenth National People’s Congress on February 28, 2005, Amendment (Ⅵ) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted at the Twenty-second Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Tenth National People’s Congress on June 29, 2006, Amendment (Ⅶ) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted at the Seventh Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Eleventh National People’s Congress on February 28, 2009, Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on Amending Certain Laws adopted at the Tenth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Eleventh National People’s Congress on August 27, 2009, Amendment (Ⅷ) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted at the Nineteenth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Eleventh National People’s Congress on February 25, 2011, Amendment (Ⅸ) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted at the Sixteenth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Twelfth National People’s Congress on August 29, 2015, Amendment (Ⅹ) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted at the Thirtieth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Twelfth National People’s Congress on November 4, 2017, Amendment (Ⅺ) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted at the Twenty-fourth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Thirteenth National People’s Congress on December 26, 2020, and Amendment (Ⅻ) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted at the Seventh Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Fourteenth National People’s Congress on December 29, 2023)
Excerpts of Provisions on Intellectual Property Rights
Section 7 Crimes of Infringing on Intellectual Property Rights
Article 213 [Crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks]
Whoever uses a trademark identical to a registered trademark on the same goods or services without the authorization of the owner of the registered trademark shall, if the circumstances are serious, be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years in conjunction with a fine, or a fine may be imposed exclusively; if the circumstances are especially serious, the offender shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years and also a fine.
Article 214 [Crime of selling goods with counterfeit registered trademarks]
Whoever knowingly sells goods bearing a counterfeit registered trademark shall, if the amount of illegal gains is relatively large or there are other serious circumstances, be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years in conjunction with a fine, or a fine may be imposed exclusively; if the amount of illegal gains is huge or if there are other especially serious circumstances, the offender shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years and also a fine.
Article 215 [Crimes of illegally manufacturing registered trademark labels and selling such labels]
Whoever forges or manufactures without authorization the labels of another person's registered trademark, or sells the labels of a registered trademark that are forged or manufactured without authorization shall, if the circumstances are serious, be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years in conjunction with a fine, or a fine may be imposed exclusively; if the circumstances are especially serious, the offender shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years nor more than ten years and also a fine.
Article 216 [Crime of counterfeiting patents]
Whoever counterfeits another person's patents shall, if the circumstances are serious, be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, in conjunction with a fine, or a fine may be imposed exclusively.
Article 217 [Crime of infringing on copyrights]
Whoever, for the purpose of making profits, commits any of the following acts of copyright infringement or infringement of rights related to copyrights shall, if the amount of illegal gains is relatively large or there are other serious circumstances, be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years in conjunction with a fine, or a fine may be imposed exclusively; if the amount of illegal gains is huge or there are other especially serious circumstances, the offender shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years and also a fine:
(1) Reproducing and distributing, or disseminating to the public through information networks a written work, musical work, work of fine arts, audiovisual work, computer software, or any other work specified by laws or administrative regulations, without authorization of its copyright owner;
(2) Publishing a book of which another person has the exclusive right of publication;
(3) Reproducing and distributing, or disseminating to the public through information networks an audio or video recording, without authorization of the producer;
(4) Reproducing and distributing an audio or video recording of a performance, or disseminating to the public through information networks, without authorization of its performer;
(5) Producing or selling a work of fine arts bearing a forged signature of its author;
(6) Intentionally circumventing or disrupting the technical measures taken by a copyright owner or a holder of copyright-related rights to protect the copyright or the copyright-related rights in their works, audio, or video recordings, among other products, without authorization of the copyright owner or rights holder.
Article 218 [Crime of selling infringing reproductions]
Whoever, for the purpose of making profits, knowingly sells infringing reproductions specified in Article 217 of this Law shall, if the amount of illegal gains is huge or if there are other serious circumstances, be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years in conjunction with a fine, or a fine may be imposed exclusively.
Article 219 [Crime of infringing on trade secrets]
Whoever commits any of the following acts of trade secret infringement shall, if the circumstances are serious, be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years in conjunction with a fine, or a fine may be imposed exclusively; if the circumstances are especially serious, the offender shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years and also a fine:
(1) Acquiring a trade secret from its rights holder by theft, bribery, fraud, coercion, electronic intrusion, or any other improper means;
(2) Disclosing, using, or permitting others to use a trade secret acquired by means as described in the preceding item;
(3) Disclosing, using, or permitting others to use a trade secret in his/her possession, in violation of confidentiality obligations or the rights holder’s requirements for keeping the trade secret confidential.
Whoever, with clear knowledge of any act listed in the preceding paragraph, acquires, discloses, uses, or permits others to use the trade secret shall be deemed to have committed trade secret infringement.
The term "rights holder" as used in this Article refers to the owner of a trade secret or any user authorized by the owner of the trade secret.
Article 219 (I) [Crime of stealing, prying into, buying, or illegally providing trade secrets to overseas parties]
Whoever steals, pries into, buys, or illegally provides any trade secret for an overseas institution, organization, or individual, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years in conjunction with a fine, or a fine may be imposed exclusively; if the circumstances are serious, the offender shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years and also a fine.
Article 220 [Penalties for crimes of intellectual property infringement committed by entities]
Where an entity commits a crime as provided for in Articles 213 through 219 (I) of this Section, the entity shall be sentenced to a fine, and the directly responsible managing personnel and other directly responsible personnel shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the respective articles in this Section.
Section 8 Crimes of Disrupting Market Order
Article 221 [Crime of damaging commercial reputation and goods reputation]
Whoever fabricates and disseminates false information to harm another person's business reputation or goods reputation, if the act causes significant losses to others or involves other serious circumstances, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than two years or criminal detention, in conjunction with a fine, or a fine may be imposed exclusively.
Article 222 [Crime of false advertising]
Where an advertiser, advertising agency, or advertisement publisher violates state regulations by using advertisements to make false publicity regarding goods or services, if the circumstances are serious, the offender shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than two years or criminal detention, in conjunction with a fine, or a fine may be imposed exclusively.
Article 231 [Penalties for crimes of disrupting market order committed by entities]
An entity committing a crime as prescribed in Articles 221 to 230 of this Section shall be fined, and the directly responsible persons in charge and other directly responsible persons shall be punished in accordance with the provisions in the corresponding article of this Section.
[The above are the provisions related to the intellectual property in the current criminal law.]
