Illegal ads removed from near Border Gate

Two large-scale advertising banners were removed from the wall of a residential building near the Border Gate on Friday following the Macau Customs Service (SA)’s investigation.
The SA received a report on December 10 that stated the banners have copyright-violated trademarks and contents related to gambling printed on them. During the investigation, the SA said that the property manager of the building was uncooperative. The authorities then invited several parties, including the company that ordered the advertisement, the manager of the building’s property managing company, the representative of the building’s proprietors’ committee and the advertising agency responsible to assist in their investigation.
The SA suspected that the two banners not only breached several administrative laws, but that the logos printed on them were very similar to several trademarks registered to the Macau Economic Services and thus could be considered a criminal offence. Eventually, the company responsible for the advertisement removed the banners.
The SA told TDM that there are too many registered trademarks in Macau. Therefore, it is very difficult for the authorities to know whether a trademark was authorized to be put on an advertisement. In most cases, the authorities would have to rely on the trademark owner to report the case. However, he said that the number of reports involving copyright-breaching advertisement was not high and the copyright holder will usually stop pursuing the case as soon as the advertisement is removed.