China's 2005 summer campaign on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection has been commenced in 12 cities across the country Monday, following the launching ceremony held in the national capital on Sunday.

The two-month campaign was initiated by eight central government departments, including the Office of the National Anti- pornography Working Group, the Ministry of Culture, the Press and Publication Administration and the General Administration of Customs.

China will carry out its 2005 summer action on IPR protection in 13 leading cities, including Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Nanjing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenyang and Lanzhou, said Liu Binjie, deputy head of the national work team on crackdown of pornographic and illegal publications.

The campaign will last through Aug. 31 to mete out severe blows at the IPR infringement and uproot production and distribution networks of the pirated products, Liu said.

Despite remarkable progress scored in the past few years, China still faces severe challenges in dealing with counterfeiters as the number of pirated DVDs is still on rise, Liu acknowledged.

In the campaign on IPR protection last year, 690,000 markets or stores selling publications were inspected and more than 40,000 closed for dealing with illegal publications, involving 12.06 million pornographic publications and 21 pirated CD/DVD production lines.

From 1994 to 2004, Chinese police had confiscated more than 800 million pirated audio and visual products and 200 DVD production lines.

Source: Xinhua