The Shanghai Higher People’s Court has rejected the appeal from a group of six people and upheld the verdict of prison for counterfeiting Lego building blocks and selling them under the Chinese brand Lepin. The six defendants have been sentenced to between three to six years in jail and the chief culprit has also been fined close to $ 14 million for copyright infringement.
The Lepin bricks were identified as replicas of authentic LEGO products by the Copyright Protection Center of China.
A Shanghai court sentenced in September last year a total of eight people to prison over the counterfeiting and manufacture of Lego building blocks worth $ 51.1 million. The eight people have since 2015 been replicating Lego toys and selling them without authorization from LEGO, the Danish toy company.
Six of the eight defendants appealed the verdict made by the No. 3 intermediate people’s court in Shanghai but The Shanghai Higher People’s Court has recently rejected the appeal and upheld the verdict.
Source: XINHUANET
