Source: People's Daily - People's Daily
Source: Supreme People's Court
Core reading
The CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the Outline for the Construction of an Intellectual Property Power (2021-2035), which requires the implementation of the basic strategy of comprehensively governing the country according to law, strictly protecting intellectual property rights in accordance with the law, and effectively safeguarding social fairness and justice and the legitimate rights and interests of rights holders. In recent years, the people's courts have actively promoted specialized adjudication of intellectual property rights, solved the problem of rights protection, and further strengthened the protection of the whole chain of intellectual property rights.
Piracy, malicious squatting, brand name... For some time, infringement of copyrights, trademark rights, etc. has brought challenges to the protection of intellectual property rights. In addition, the protection of intangible cultural heritage, Chinese time-honored brands and intellectual property rights in the cultural and creative industries is related to the inheritance of China's excellent traditional culture and the prosperity and development of cultural industries.
In recent years, the people's courts have adhered to serving the overall situation, serving the people and administering justice impartially, actively giving play to the role of judicial protection of intellectual property rights, and promoting the formation of a judicial protection system that is fair and efficient, has scientific jurisdiction, has clear boundaries of power, and is systematic and complete.
The Supreme People's Court recently issued the Opinions on Strengthening Intellectual Property Adjudication in the New Era to Provide Powerful Judicial Services and Guarantees for the Construction of an Intellectual Property Power (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions), proposing 20 policy measures to comprehensively strengthen the adjudication of intellectual property rights in the new era from the four aspects of work requirements, fair administration of justice, improvement of efficiency and deepening of reform.
New changes
Cases involving core technologies and key areas have increased, the amount of litigation subject matter has increased significantly, and the protection of emerging industries has increased
In the highly publicized case between Red Bull and TENCEL, the SPC rendered a final judgment rejecting Red Bull's request to "revoke the first-instance judgment and commute to a judgment that Red Bull has legal rights to the Red Bull series of trademarks", and clarified that Tencel Thailand is the owner of the Red Bull series trademarks. According to the judge handling the case, the judgment in this case clarifies the legal boundaries between trademark assignment and trademark licensing, equally protects the legitimate interests of Chinese and foreign trademark rights holders, and clearly conveys the signal of increasing the judicial protection of intellectual property rights.
"Little i Robot" invention patent invalidation request administrative dispute case, "lithium battery protection chip" integrated circuit layout design infringement case, employee violation of confidentiality obligations criminal and civil case, "Lego" copyright infringement case... These cases of social concern were selected as "Top 10 Intellectual Property Cases in Chinese Courts in 2020" and "50 Typical Intellectual Property Cases" issued by the SPC.
According to Lin Guanghai, president of the Third Civil Division of the Supreme People's Court, in 2020, courts across the country received a total of 525618 new intellectual property cases such as first-instance, second-instance, and retrial applications, and concluded 524387 cases, up 9.1% and 10.2% respectively from 2019, including a number of major and important cases with high-quality service development.
The first batch of typical cases of judicial protection of intellectual property rights in the seed industry issued by the SPC show that the people's courts have effectively increased the intensity of compensation for intellectual property infringement in the seed industry and ensured that seed industry innovators obtain economic benefits in accordance with the law; increased the intensity of criminal sanctions in accordance with the law and severely punished seed-related crimes; adhered to the judicial concept conducive to the protection of rights, cracked the problem of difficulty in determining the infringement of variety rights; standardized the application for new plant varieties, and promoted the improvement of the quality of variety authorization. From 2016 to 2020, courts at all levels across the country concluded a total of 781 civil cases involving disputes over new plant varieties, and the annual number of cases concluded increased from 66 in 2016 to 252 in 2020.
"In recent years, intellectual property cases have shown three new changes and new characteristics. First, the number of cases involving core technologies and key areas is increasing, the second is that the market value of intellectual property rights involved in the cases and the corresponding amount of litigation objects have increased significantly, and the third is that domestic and foreign litigation is becoming more and more closely intertwined. The relevant person in charge of the SPC said that it is necessary to deeply understand that strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights is an important part of improving the property rights protection system, and effectively strengthen the judicial protection of intellectual property rights in emerging industries, key areas, seed source and seed industries, and serve high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement.
In the face of new fields, new hot spots and new problems, the Opinions require strengthening the judicial protection of intellectual property rights in the Internet field and new formats such as big data, artificial intelligence, and genetic technology, improving the rules for the judicial protection of intellectual property rights in algorithms, business methods, and artificial intelligence outputs, reasonably determining the legal responsibilities of entities in new economies and new formats, and actively responding to the judicial needs of intellectual property protection in new technologies, new industries, new formats, and new models.
New mechanism
Explore the path of specialized adjudication of intellectual property rights, improve the quality and efficiency of adjudication, unify the scale of adjudication, and promote judicial reform
Walking into the Supreme People's Court Intellectual Property Court in Fengtai District, Beijing, the science and technology court that integrates the use of information terminals, synchronous circle painting technology, AR technology and other technologies attracts attention.
Since its official inauguration on January 1, 2019, the SPC Intellectual Property Tribunal has actively explored the construction of a smart court model. Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the court has carried out more than 2,000 online trials, relying on the "people's court service platform" trial intensive service model, and has initiated more than 17,000 electronic service sessions, with a total service success rate of 96.1% and an average cycle of 0.36 days, effectively saving judicial costs.
"In 2020, the average trial period of second-instance substantive cases is 123 days, of which the average trial period of civil cases is 121.5 days and the average trial period of administrative cases is 130.7 days. Before the establishment of the court, the average trial cycle of similar cases in the local high courts was about 1 year, and the specialized trial shortened the trial cycle. Gao Zhonglin, vice president of the SPC Intellectual Property Tribunal, said.
In addition to the intellectual property courts established by the SPC, the intellectual property courts of Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hainan Free Trade Ports have also been established. "Since the establishment of local intellectual property courts, they have adhered to reform and innovation, gradually explored the path of specialized adjudication of intellectual property rights with Chinese characteristics, won positive evaluation from the people and the international community, and played an active role in improving the quality and efficiency of adjudication, unifying adjudication standards, and promoting judicial reform." The relevant person in charge of the SPC said, "The establishment of the intellectual property court has enhanced the influence of China's intellectual property judiciary and created a new situation in the judicial protection of intellectual property rights in China." ”
The Outline for the Construction of an Intellectual Property Power (2021-2035) proposes to implement the construction of high-level intellectual property adjudication institutions and strengthen the construction of adjudication foundations, institutional mechanisms and smart courts. "It is necessary to further promote the 'three-in-one' reform of civil, criminal and administrative cases of intellectual property rights, improve the intellectual property litigation system, improve the mechanism for ascertaining diversified technical facts, deepen the reform of the diversion of complicated and simple cases, and improve the quality, efficiency and credibility of the judiciary." The relevant person in charge of the SPC said.
New exploration
Solve the problem of "difficult to prove, long cycle, high cost, and low compensation", and strengthen the protection of the whole chain of intellectual property rights
In view of the high cost of rights protection and low compensation in intellectual property cases, the people's courts have implemented a punitive damages system, and the amount of compensation awarded in intellectual property cases last year increased by 79.3% year-on-year. The "Opinions" clearly put forward that punitive damages should be applied in accordance with the law, the intensity of compensation for intellectual property infringement damages and the punishment of infringement acts should be strengthened, and the regulation of acts such as false litigation and malicious litigation of intellectual property rights should be strengthened to prevent the abuse of intellectual property rights and promote the construction of a creditworthiness system for intellectual property litigation.
In recent years, in order to effectively curb the frequent occurrence of intellectual property infringement, the SPC has issued judicial policies such as the Opinions on Comprehensively Strengthening the Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights to strengthen the protection of the entire chain of intellectual property rights.
In order to solve the problems such as the difficulty and long period of evidence for rights holders to protect their rights, the SPC has formulated judicial interpretations on evidence in civil litigation of intellectual property rights, improved systems such as evidence submission, evidence preservation, and judicial appraisal, and improved evidence rules that conform to the characteristics of intellectual property cases. Clarify the burden of proof on the party that has the evidence, clearly prove the legal consequences of obstructing or obstructing evidence preservation, appropriately reduce the burden of proof on rights holders in accordance with law, and guide parties to actively, proactively, comprehensively, and honestly provide evidence.
At present, there are still some problems and difficulties in the adjudication of intellectual property rights, there is still a gap between the judicial concept of intellectual property rights and the requirements of the new stage of the new era, the judicial reform in the field of intellectual property adjudication needs to be further deepened, and the new situation and new issues of judicial protection of intellectual property rights need to be studied in greater depth. In order to make up for these shortcomings, the Opinions call for promoting the improvement of the appeal trial mechanism for intellectual property cases at the national level, strengthening the construction of intellectual property courts and intellectual property courts, deepening the comprehensive reform of the judicial responsibility system, and promoting the optimization of the layout of intellectual property jurisdiction. In addition, the SPC will also study and formulate litigation norms that conform to the rules of intellectual property adjudication, and improve the litigation evidence system that conforms to the characteristics of intellectual property cases.
"The people's courts will comprehensively strengthen the judicial protection of intellectual property rights and provide a solid legal guarantee for the realization of scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance; strengthen the protection of copyright and neighboring rights and prosper socialist culture with Chinese characteristics; strengthen the protection of trademark rights and promote the construction of a brand power; strengthen anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition justice, and maintain a market environment conducive to fair competition conducive to innovative development." The relevant person in charge of the SPC said.
Coordinator of this issue: Ji Jianming Layout design: Zhang Fangman
People's Daily (November 18, 2021, 12th edition)