According to information released by the Shanghai Pudong Procuratorate on January 9, 2024, three defendants were sentenced to up to 4.5 years in prison with a 5.5 million RMB fine for selling 830,000 pieces of counterfeit Disney clothing with a sales value of more than 17 million RMB.

In February 2023, the police received a report that Ms. Yu purchased a Disney children’s thermal-underwear set for 88 RMB on a well-known online shopping platform. The store’s product page had the Disney registered trademark. However, after receiving the goods, Ms. Yu found that the quality of the clothes was relatively poor and said, "It seems to be fake."

After investigating the online shopping store, public security organizations destroyed the den where criminals were manufacturing and selling counterfeit goods and arrested three criminal suspects, Che, Zhu, and Feng. More than 200,000 pieces of clothing were seized on the site alone with a value of approximately RMB 1.8 million.

In August 2021, Che and Zhu signed an authorization agreement through a third-party company and obtained a so-called “authorization letter” issued by the Walt Disney Company. However, Che and Zhu didn’t verify the ownership status of this third-party company.

With the “authorization letter”, Che and Zhu registered a clothing trading company, falsely claiming to have Disney trademark authorization. Later Feng was invited to join them.

According to the audit, from 7 September 2021 to 27 February 2023, the total actual sales volume of criminal products exceeded 830,000 pieces, and the actual sales amount was more than 17 million RMB.

For committing the crime of counterfeiting registered trademark, the defendants received a severe punishment: the defendant Che was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison and fined RMB 5.5 million; the defendant Zhu was sentenced to 3 years in prison and fined RMB 3 million; the defendant Feng was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison, suspended for 3 years, and fined RMB 200,000.

Laura Gao

Registration Practice Director

[email protected]

+86 10 8446 4788