Alibaba and China-UK business group expand brand protection
E-commerce platform Alibaba and the China-Britain Business Council (CBBC) have strengthened their efforts to enhance IP protections for UK-based entities.
Yesterday, November 22, Alibaba announced that CEO of the UK Intellectual Property Office, Tim Moss, and Alibaba’s chief platform governance officer, Jessie Zheng, witnessed the signing of an agreement to build on the parties’ three-year partnership.
As part of the agreement, there will be an increased amount of training for small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as larger entities, on the processes for removing IP-infringing listings.
The agreement is also expected to “enhance pre-emptive measures to stop infringing content from appearing online, boost knowledge sharing between UK brands, the CBBC and Alibaba, and strengthen offline cross-border law enforcement cooperation”.
Alibaba said that its partnership with the CBBC has delivered some notable successes, including the pioneering of a new cooperation model with Chinese customs and police in tracking imported fake products from abroad.
Jeff Astle, executive director of the CBBC, explained that the agreement was a “significant step toward enhancing protections for UK companies’ IP in China”.
Moss added: “This agreement builds on the successful collaboration between the CBBC and Alibaba to reduce infringing behaviour online. It strengthens IP protection for brand owners and increases consumer confidence that their online purchases are legitimate products.”
Zheng noted that Alibaba will continue to “build the trust that UK brands place in Alibaba while continuing our leadership role in IP rights protection within the e-commerce industry”.
In August, Alibaba expanded its brand protection efforts in partnership with the Chinese government.
Cloud Sword Alliance, an IP taskforce set up by Alibaba and provincial and municipality governments, met to increase their efforts to protect brands selling on Alibaba.
The alliance was created the previous year, to promote collaboration between Alibaba and law enforcement on investigations to track down IP infringers offline.
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