On April 18th, the famouse Silk Street (秀水街） received the final verdict of selling couterfeits of Prada, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci, and Burberry. The court fined it RMB100,000. This is a landmark case in many aspects.

Silk Street company, that operates the market, did not sell any counterfeits. It was the vendors that rent the space from the company did. The court basically held the namesake company responsible for the counterfeiting activities. This is also a demonstration of China getting more serious enforcing IPR.

Many people came to China searching for those counterfeits, some do it for gags and others for real. No matter what, they will be disappointed next time when they visit Silk Street.

As people get wealthier, and Chinese are rapidly, they naturally stop buying counterfeits. Honestly, except for gagging purposes, there is no real satisfaction toting a counterfeit LV handbag. People buy namebrands for either the image or the quality. Counterfeits do not represent quality (most of the time) and the image is a difficult sell when the buyer herself knew it is not the real thing.

China government is also showing increased seriousness dealing with the counterfeit problem.

Visitors to China, there are still lots of bargains, but bragging a $50 LV handbag can be difficult now.