As the scale of e-commerce transactions in China continues to expand, trademark infringement issues in the e-commerce field are increasingly attracting attention from businesses and consumers. Recently, the State Administration for Market Regulation organized the formulation of the "Provisions on the Obligations of E-commerce Platforms to Cooperate in Investigating Trademark Infringement Cases", promoting the effective protection of enterprise intellectual property rights and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. Tong Bo, a first level inspector of the Enforcement and Inspection Bureau of the State Administration for Market Regulation, introduced that in September 2024, the State Administration for Market Regulation organized 81 e-commerce platforms across the country to sign the "Self discipline Convention on Enhancing Intellectual Property Protection Level of E-commerce Platforms" (hereinafter referred to as the "Self discipline Convention"), which clarifies a series of responsibilities and obligations of the platform, including identity verification, complaint handling, and assistance in investigation of operators on the platform. This' Self Discipline Convention 'is not a mandatory legal requirement, but is voluntarily signed and self enforced by 81 platforms. The commitments made by 81 platforms include requiring e-commerce platform operators to provide and review relevant proof of rights for operators whose store types are marked as' flagship store ',' official ',' authorized ', etc. After receiving notification from intellectual property rights holders (regarding infringement of their intellectual property rights by operators within the platform), e-commerce platform operators shall promptly complete the review. The time limit required for completing the review shall be uniformly announced on the rights protection page of the rights holders. The State Administration for Market Regulation will organize investigations and verifications, supervise and guide enterprises to fulfill self-discipline agreements, and expose those with prominent problems. In addition, we have found in law enforcement that some suspected counterfeit online stores have false address information and cannot be contacted by phone. We call it the 'Ghost Shop'. ”Tong Bo introduced that there are a large number of "ghost online stores" that are difficult to solve solely based on the measures stipulated in the "Self Discipline Convention". To this end, the State Administration for Market Regulation has organized the formulation of the "Provisions on the Obligations of E-commerce Platforms to Cooperate in Investigating Trademark Infringement Cases", which has made more detailed and powerful provisions based on the "Self Discipline Convention". According to regulations, e-commerce platforms should notify online store operators to proactively contact market supervision departments for investigation after receiving information about "ghost online stores" reported by market supervision departments in accordance with prescribed procedures. If a platform knowingly or should have known of the existence of infringement and still provides services for such infringement, it shall be held accountable in accordance with the law. (New Society)