BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhuanet) -- China cracked down on 2,451 foreign related infringement cases in the first half of 2005, up 55.8 percent over the same period last year, said Li Dongsheng, deputy director of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, Monday.

    During this period, China discovered 18,130 trademark infringement and counterfeiting cases in total, up 13.4 percent year-on-year, said Li at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office.

    The administrations of industry and commerce throughout the country have transferred to police 88 suspects in the trademark infringement cases from January to June, 2.3 times of that of the same period last year.

    Number of registered trademarks reaches 2.37 mln

    At the press conference, Li said China's accumulated number of registered trademarks had reached 2.37 million by the end of this June.

    In 1983, China's annual trademark applications for registration was less than 20,000 and among which only 1,687 were foreign applications. By 2004, the number of annual applications had reached 588,000, and China has been on the top of the world for three consecutive years.

    Out of the annual applications, 60,000 were foreign trademarks,and the United States, Japan and Germany ranked first, second and third in the number of trademark applications, with 13,343, 11,945 and 5,961 applications respectively.

    This demonstrated China has a comprehensive and sound trademark system, China's protection on the exclusive right to use a registered trademark is effective and foreign investors have strong confidence in China's market environment, he said. Enditem