Any one who infringes an IP right is both civilly and criminally liable. If he/she is convicted in court, he/she is subject to a criminal record, imprisonment (suspended sentence) and fine. Pleading guilty will still result in a criminal record. No matter the defendant is a limited company or an individual, criminal record is a certain result of an infringement.  

 

If the defendant’s involvement in the crime is very limited, the court may allow suspended sentence instead of imprisonment. The offender would be put on probation. 

This means that if the offender is convicted of another offence during the passing of sentence has been suspended, then the offender may be sentenced for the original offence. For example, if the offender is a trade company which received a few infringed products to sell in Hong Kong, since the number of infringed products is small, usually the chance of suspending sentence is high.