From the perspective of industry scale, according to statistics, the market size of China's cosmetics industry is expected to be about 500 billion yuan in 2019, which is the world's second largest cosmetics market after the United States; At the same time, in the past five years, China's cosmetics industry CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 9.1%, much higher than the global cosmetics industry average of 4.1% CAGR, the market size continues to climb, which means that China's cosmetics market size and growth space is huge. However, from the perspective of the development stage of the industry, the development of China's cosmetics industry is still in the extensive development stage, and has not yet completed the industry concentration and integration. Compared with white goods, mobile phones and other industries, the integration and concentration of China's cosmetics industry came much later, and is expected to be completed in the next 3-5 years. It is precisely because the current cosmetics industry is in the extensive stage of development, the final market pattern and healthy competition order has not really formed, on the one hand, there is a scene of a hundred flowers blooming, new brands, new channels, new concepts emerge in an endless stream; On the other hand, cosmetics operators are full of imitation, counterfeiting and other vicious competition phenomena. At this stage, the fight against counterfeit products and fakes has become a problem that most brands of scale have to face. How can we fight against fake products and fakes more effectively? Jiao Hanwei, lawyer of Shanghai Guohillhouse Law Firm, will discuss the problem of cracking down on counterfeit products and cosmetics from two perspectives of law and cosmetics business, so as to provide reference for cosmetics operators.

The easiest way to fight is to have power.

Many cosmetics operators usually think about brand protection when they find counterfeit products or fakes in the market, but the right posture should be to think about this issue before the appearance of counterfeit products or fakes, and in time to put up a fence around their brands. Cosmetics operators to crack down on counterfeit products, whether it is to crack down on fakes, in the final analysis is a claim to their intellectual property rights. If you want to protect your intellectual property rights, you must let yourself have legal and effective rights. Intellectual property is a unique opportunity to enjoy specific business interests, but also to stop others illegal infringement of the most effective means, for enterprise management is both a shield and a spear. The acquisition of intellectual property rights is conditional, not innovation is granted rights, originality is one of the conditions for operators to enjoy intellectual property rights, in addition to the completion of registration procedures and other conditions. The law does not help lazy people. Cosmetics operators should actively innovate, but also actively transform their intellectual achievements into intellectual property rights in accordance with the requirements of the law. Complete the registration or application of copyright, exclusive trademark right or design patent for enterprise trademark, trade name, product name, product series name, unique ICON, unique bottle shape of product, unique flower box of product, unique color of product, domain name, goodwill and other unique commercial identification or intellectual innovation results in the first time. Cosmetic operators put a fence around their above commercial logos, which means that they enjoy the corresponding intellectual property rights, they can exclusively use a specific commercial logo, enjoy the brand value of the commercial promotion precipitation, and they can also have a powerful weapon in the fight against copycat products or fakes in the market, which has a multiplier effect. If there is no first time to tie the fence of the brand, there is the risk of being hitchhiked or copied by others, in specific cases, it is inevitable that the phenomenon of enterprise "crash" will occur, causing consumer confusion, although all means are used, the effect of rights protection is inevitable. In short, cosmetics operators must actively transform the intellectual innovation achievements of enterprises into legal and effective intellectual property rights in the daily business process. Rights are the most effective means to fight against copycat products or fakes.

Crack down on copycat products, pay attention to civil litigation claims.

At present, the phenomenon of plagiarism such as cosmetic appearance design is very popular, which is one of the most troublesome problems for many large-scale cosmetics operators. Original products have not been listed, cloned products have blossomed everywhere, greatly affecting the product listing. The appearance of shanzhai products is the happiness of cosmetics operators, on the one hand, it shows that the originality of the product and the popularity of the brand has increased, on the other hand, shanzhai products will also cause market confusion, affect product sales, must be timely combat. How to combat fake products? The crackdown on copycat products mainly has two kinds of administrative means and civil litigation means. Compared with administrative means, civil litigation means to combat copycat products is more effective and should be paid more attention to. Because in the practice of cosmetics business, most of the producers of copycat products are basically real, and have a certain economic strength, with the prerequisite for civil litigation means to fight. At the same time, in terms of procedures, for civil litigation means to fight against copycat products, law firms can provide a full-risk agent cooperation model, which means that cosmetics operators do not have to bear the cost in advance, by the law firm to complete all the evidence, litigation rights protection, implementation and other work. Such a model, for cosmetics operators, do not bear costs, do not spend manpower, through the professional services of law firms, greatly increase the infringement cost of the infringing party, perseverance can be in the case of no cost pressure with the help of third-party professional means to effectively purify the market. As far as the crackdown on administrative means is concerned, in view of the uncertain factors of low transparency of administrative law enforcement in the second and third-tier markets, local protectionism, and high case handling costs, the crackdown effect needs to be improved in cosmetic business practice.

Crack down on fake goods, pay attention to criminal crackdown.

Counterfeiting is the current scale of cosmetics operators have to face another vexing problem. On the one hand, China's current protection of intellectual property rights is limited, on the other hand, with the popularity of e-commerce, wechat business, new retail and other channels in recent years, the above channels are basically the separation of people and goods for transactions, providing a certain space for the spread of fake goods. In the practice of cosmetics business, fakes are basically unqualified products. On the one hand, they will eat into the sales market of authentic brand products. On the other hand, once the product quality and safety accidents occur in fake products, consumers can not distinguish the authenticity of the situation, which will bring great uncontrollable risks to the brand. In the face of fake goods, how to fight cosmetics operators? On the one hand, cosmetics operators should establish an effective anti-counterfeiting identification system, and provide efficient means of product identification without consumers and operators themselves in technology. On the other hand, they should be hard in the face of administrative and criminal crackdowns on fake goods, especially criminal crackdowns. The identity of those who make or sell counterfeit cosmetics is hidden, and they usually do not have the conditions to fight through civil litigation. At the same time, the operation cost of cosmetics counterfeiting or selling counterfeit is very low, the profit space is huge, usually administrative strikes or civil litigation claims and other means can not effectively stop the behavior of cosmetics counterfeiting or selling. In the practice of cosmetics business, the most effective means to combat the phenomenon of cosmetics counterfeiting or selling counterfeit is criminal attack, and investigate the criminal responsibility of the responsible person. The brand side through criminal attack, investigate the criminal responsibility of the responsible person, set up a benchmark in the circle of fake production and sales, in order to play a better warning effect. According to the provisions of China's criminal law, the association for the manufacture or sale of counterfeit cosmetics is suspected to constitute the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks or the crime of producing and selling fake and inferior products, especially the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks is involved in high probability in practice. According to China's criminal Law, whoever, without the permission of the owner of a registered trademark, uses a trademark identical to its registered trademark on the same kind of goods, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention and shall also, or shall only, be fined; If the circumstances are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and shall also be fined. If the perpetrator still exists in the product adulteration, adulteration, counterfeit, shoddy or unqualified products as qualified products, and the sales amount is large, it will also be suspected of the production and sale of counterfeit and shoddy products. The crime of producing and selling fake and shoddy products is more severe than the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks. In the process of cracking down on fake products, cosmetics operators should pay attention to the specific illegal and criminal composition of the responsible person, accurately convict and sentence the responsible person, and accurately crack down on the behavior of making and selling fake cosmetics to the maximum extent. The key point for cosmetics operators to crack down on the counterfeiting or selling of cosmetics is to grasp the clues of counterfeiting or selling. Where do tips on counterfeiting or selling come from? On the one hand, enterprises should set up a strong anti-counterfeiting team, through the anti-counterfeiting team to visit the market, agents report and other internal systems to grasp the clues of cosmetics manufacturing or selling counterfeit in the market; On the other hand, through the administrative crackdown of administrative organs to dig up criminal clues or administrative cases into criminal cases; On the other hand, when appropriate, we can cooperate with third-party anti-counterfeiting companies to grasp the clues of cosmetics counterfeiting or sales in the market through external systems. After mastering the clues of cosmetics counterfeiting or selling fake products, distinguish the primary and secondary, do a good job in management, make typical cases, tree benchmarks, and educate the market, so as to effectively combat the bad gas of counterfeiters.

The essence of business is foresight. In the process of cosmetics business, operators should be forward-looking and do a good job of brand protection, the first time when the copycat products or fakes appear, to maintain the brand market order, maintain the interests of business. At the same time, only by doing a good job in the two aspects of brand protection before and after the work, cosmetics operators can achieve their own commercial purposes. Otherwise, the operator may have to face the risk of dumb eating coptis or bad money driving out good money.