Recently, the Chaoyang District People's Court in Beijing concluded a criminal case involving the production and sale of counterfeit well-known trendy toy brand "POP MART" figurines, which has attracted considerable attention. As a leading enterprise in the domestic trendy toy industry, POP MART has successfully launched multiple collection toys that are loved by young consumers through original IP design and series product strategy. Among them, the "Temperature" series and the "Night City" series have become popular products in the market due to their unique shapes and emotional resonance, and have therefore become objects of counterfeiting by criminals.
At the end of 2023, employees of POP MART discovered a large number of counterfeit products of the "Temperature" and "Night City" series toys in the market, and reported them to the public security organs. The police seized over 80000 counterfeit toys with an estimated value of about 400000 yuan at the scene of the animation technology company involved. According to a comprehensive investigation, the total amount of business involved by Zhu exceeds 1 million yuan.
In December of the same year, Zhu was arrested and his arrest was approved in November 2024. According to the case materials, from July 2023 to January 2024, Zhu, together with Ning, Peng and others, organized the production of counterfeit popular toy products from POP MART Company in a certain animation technology company in Lichuan County, Jiangxi Province. These counterfeit figurines with a cost of only 3 to 5 yuan, after Zhu raised the price by about 10%, flowed into multiple e-commerce platform live streaming rooms operated by Liao, Li, and others. Finally, they were sold to various places through online live streaming rooms at a price of 20 to 30 yuan and flowed into the national market.
In May 2025, the People's Procuratorate of Chaoyang District, Beijing, prosecuted Zhu for copyright infringement. The prosecutor pointed out that Zhu copied and distributed his art works for profit without the permission of the copyright owner, and the circumstances were particularly serious, which has violated Article 217 of the Criminal Law. After trial, the Chaoyang District Court determined that Zhu colluded with others to carry out infringing and copying activities, with a huge amount of business, and the circumstances were particularly serious, constituting the crime of copyright infringement in accordance with the law. The court, taking into account his confession attitude, lack of criminal record, and partial return of stolen goods, imposed a lenient punishment on Zhu. Zhu was sentenced to four years in prison for copyright infringement and fined 600000 yuan.
The judgment has now taken legal effect, and Zhu stated in court that he will not appeal. The presiding judge of the case, Wang Yang, stated that the trial of this case reflects the judicial orientation of the judicial authorities to implement a "comprehensive crackdown" on the intellectual property infringement chain, covering the entire process from commissioned production, mass manufacturing to online sales, demonstrating the closed-loop governance effect of criminal justice protection of intellectual property.

Such judgments reflect China's continuous strengthening of judicial efforts in the field of intellectual property protection. With the deepening development of the market economy, intellectual property protection has become a key link in maintaining the innovation environment and market order. Any infringement with serious social harm may face criminal accountability.