March 15,2018

Beginning in 2015, China’s largest e-commerce platform operator, Alibaba started to release its annual reports on IP problems arising from its platform, its reaction to these problems and the results of its reactive measures. Viewed from many perspectives, Alibaba Annual Report on IP Protection 2017 (referred to as “the Annual Report” hereinafter) plays a milestone role in the development of the company’s IP protection and it was applauded as a classic report by insiders. We would like to offer our views and comments on Alibaba’s Annual Report in our capacity as both a colleague working for the cause of IP protection and a cooperator of Alibaba. Meanwhile, as a user of Alibaba’s right protection platform, we would like to make remarks on parts of this Annual Report.

The latest annual report consists of four parts: from reviewing each goal the Alibaba Group had reached last year on matters of IP protection to every progress that Alibaba have achieved in cooperation with a variety of social resources to deal with all types of infringement activities and to the company’s awareness of many serious problems such as crossing-border trafficking of fake products. Finally, the report discusses the Alibaba’s projected development on IP protection for the year of 2018. The annual report sets forth the following quantitative achievements:

1. Proactively deleting any suspected infringement link, with 97% of the suspected links being deleted in seconds;
2. 95% complaints on IP infringement were handled within 24 hours
3. While the channels for IP infringement complaints functioned perfectly well, the total number of complaints dropped 42%.
4. Shutting down 250, 000 Taobao stores suspected of IP infringements

We totally agree with the report’s assessment “historic breakthroughs have been made”.

In 2017, Ali had organized many symposium with many IP protection partnership organizations including BOB. On these symposium, Ali have communicated fully with these partnership organizations and gathered a great number of policy recommendations regarding the operation and the systematic format of the current platform. After weighting these recommendations, Ali have re-organized and reformed the systematic configuration of the current complaint platform and operation rules. This reform, based on the perspectives of the owners or the actual users, will greatly improve the practicality and smoothness of the operating system. In fact, better timeliness in handling infringements has been achieved for both the IP owner and the actual users. In an e-commerce platform with a zillion number of clicks like Alibaba’s, timeliness is crucial to handling IP infringements. If a complaint can be handled in a timely manner, risks for buying IP infringement products will be reduced for on-line customers. This means that both the rights of the IP owners and the interests of the buyers will be protected.

The Alibaba today is no longer merely a company whose very existence relies on selling products on Internet. Alibaba now is seeking to build a comprehensive online ecological system where IT technology is at the center of its competitiveness. In this annual report, many pages are devoted to demonstrating that various technologies are designed for IP protection. Auto recognition of an online link, picture recognition and relevant algorithm, the use of various information analysis by virtue of big data make the IP protection system of Alibaba more effective and even fairer. Many years ago, a prevalent belief among IP protection professionals is that “if you know someone within Ali, you will be more effective than your competitors in achieving IP protection goals.” Now this is no longer true as the IP protection system of Ali relies more and more heavily on IT technology and becomes more streamlined. Fairness becomes better protected in the reformed platform. We believe that as the platform continues to upgrade and reform, it will improve the integrity of all players in the entire IP protection system, including both the IP owners and the IP protection agents. Dishonest players will be out of the game.

This report also expounded Ali’s cooperation with law enforcement and its IP protection efforts for the off-line stores. In 2017, BOB participated in a number of cases relating to Ali’s platform or cooperated with Ali in several off-line IP protection actions. We have made great success in 2017. We believe that BOB will have more opportunities to work on the similar projects or cases with Ali in 2018.

The Annual Report also discusses problems relating to IP infringements across national borders. In IP infringement cases handled by BOB in 2017, the number of international cases across borders are on the rise. Particularly, the number of cases involving “overseas purchasing” are on the rise. Problems associated with the administrative jurisdiction by sovereign nations have long been in existence from the ancient times. It is better to see these problems through a positive light. At the core of these problem lies in the fact that the Ali platform has connected different consumer markets which exist under different sovereign jurisdiction. As such, the Ali platform has an obligation, a responsibility to eliminate IP infringements resulted from the differences in laws and jurisdiction among different nations. We are confident that the Ali, with her super powerful IT technology and financial strength, will deliver a satisfactory result for all of us in IP protection in the year of 2018.

By Zhou Yining,
Manager of Innovation Department BOB IP Service LTD
2018-03-15

Link to Alibaba Annual Report on IP Protection 2017
https://ipp.alibabagroup.com/infoContent.htm?spm=a2o2l.8248579.0.0.31cf747b9605OH&skyWindowUrl=news-20180110-cn