Supreme People's Procuratorate: From 2021 to 2023, a total of 862 people were accepted, reviewed, and prosecuted for trade secret infringement crimes

The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) held a press conference on "Deepening the Comprehensive Performance of Intellectual Property Procuratorial Duties and Promoting the Development of New Quality Productive Forces" at 10 a.m. on April 25 (Thursday) at the Multi-functional Hall of the Eastern District of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (Room 5118, Building 5), and released the White Paper on Intellectual Property Procuratorial Work (2021-2023) and typical cases of intellectual property protection by procuratorial organs. Gong Ming, member of the party group of the Supreme People's Procuratorate and deputy procurator general, will attend the press conference and answer questions from reporters. The following is the transcript of the press conference:

Gong Ming, member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Procurator General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate

Gong Ming, member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Procurator General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate:

Today, the Supreme People's Procuratorate released the White Paper on Intellectual Property Prosecution from 2021 to 2023. First of all, thank you for your continued interest and support for intellectual property prosecution.

General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized that "innovation is the first driving force to lead development, and the protection of intellectual property rights is to protect innovation" and "the protection of property rights, especially intellectual property rights, is an important aspect of shaping a good business environment". In order to adapt to the new situation and new requirements of intellectual property protection, at the end of 2020, the Supreme People's Procuratorate established an intellectual property procuratorial office and promoted the comprehensive performance of intellectual property procuratorial duties across the country. The White Paper released today comprehensively summarizes the comprehensive performance of duties in the past three years and systematically presents the main achievements of the intellectual property prosecution reform. Next, I would like to introduce the main contents and characteristics of the White Paper.

First, the main content. The White Paper consists of a preface, a main text of parts I to IV, an epilogue and a memorabilia, with a total of 7 parts and about 17,000 words.

The preface condenses and summarizes the whole article, and describes the background, guiding ideology and main ideas of strengthening intellectual property prosecution work.

The first part is the basic situation of intellectual property prosecution work, mainly introducing the case handling data and case characteristics of the "four major procuratorates" of intellectual property rights.

The second part is to serve the high-quality development of the economy and society, and introduces the performance of the procuratorial organs in five aspects: focusing on the protection of key core technologies, serving and guaranteeing the construction of a cultural power, strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights related to enterprises, boosting the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, and punishing malicious litigation of intellectual property rights in accordance with the law.

The third part is to promote the construction of a large-scale protection pattern, and introduces the work results of procuratorial organs in four aspects: deepening departmental coordination and cooperation, persisting in actively performing duties in accordance with the law, continuously strengthening procuratorial publicity, and actively participating in international exchanges and cooperation.

The fourth part is to further promote the comprehensive performance of intellectual property procuratorial duties, and introduces the main practices and progress of the Supreme People's Procuratorate in strengthening the top-level design, coordinating and guiding the national procuratorial organs to improve the working mechanism and enhance the comprehensive performance of their duties.

The conclusion is the outlook for the work in the new year, and proposes that intellectual property prosecution should focus on building a law-based business environment, promote the development of new quality productivity, and perform its duties.

The memorabilia of intellectual property prosecution lists the main events in the performance of intellectual property prosecution in chronological order.

Second, the main features. In the past three years, the performance of intellectual property prosecution duties can be summarized as "four focuses".

The first is to focus on high-quality and efficient case handling and increase the judicial protection of intellectual property rights.

Criminal penalties have been intensified. From 2021 to 2023, the number of people prosecuted by procuratorial organs nationwide for IPR infringement crimes increased from 22,000 to 30,700. The number of cases has increased significantly. In 2023, the number of copyright infringement crimes and trade secret infringement crimes will increase by 1.4 times and 96.6% year-on-year, respectively, which is significantly higher than the overall number of intellectual property infringement crimes. At the same time, supervision over case filing has continued to increase, and investigation supervision and coordination have been strengthened.

The effectiveness of civil and administrative supervision has been significantly improved. The number of intellectual property civil and administrative litigation supervision cases has increased significantly year by year, with a year-on-year increase of 3.1 times in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 72.2% in 2022, and a year-on-year increase of 1.7 times in 2023 to 2,508 cases. In 2023, 726 procuratorial suggestions for protests and retrials were submitted in the supervision of effective civil judgments, an increase of 8.1 times year-on-year.

Public interest litigation procuratorates have made steady progress. In 2023, procuratorial organs across the country will accept a total of 950 leads on public interest litigation in the field of intellectual property rights, and 873 cases will be filed. Anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition public interest litigation has been continuously strengthened, with 44 case leads accepted and 33 cases filed. The punitive damages system was effectively implemented, and 25 claims for punitive damages were filed, all of which were supported by the courts.

Comprehensive performance of duties has been carried out in depth. In 2023, rights holders filed 636 civil lawsuits attached to criminal cases, an increase of 22.6 times year-on-year, effectively making up for the loss of rights holders' interests while reducing the burden of litigation, and achieving the goal of "settling criminal cases with criminal punishment".

The second is to focus on comprehensive judicial protection of intellectual property rights and serve to ensure high-quality economic and social development.

Strengthen the protection of key core technologies. Since 2021, the Supreme People's Procuratorate has formulated 13 procuratorial policies to protect and promote the development of scientific and technological productivity, and explored the establishment of a new mechanism for intellectual property prosecution and case handling to support comprehensive innovation. Focus on high-tech fields that are related to the survival and development of enterprises, increase the intensity of case handling, and severely crack down on criminal acts of infringing on intellectual property rights of key core technologies. From 2021 to 2023, a total of 862 people were accepted, reviewed, and prosecuted for trade secret infringement crimes.

Service guarantee the construction of a cultural power. We will continue to strengthen the punishment of crimes and civil and administrative procuratorial supervision, and support the prosperity and development of cultural industries and cultural markets. From 2021 to 2023, a total of 5,097 people were accepted, examined, and prosecuted for copyright infringement crimes. The Supreme People's Procuratorate, together with the National Copyright Administration and other departments, jointly supervised the handling of more than 300 major infringement and piracy cases in seven batches. Escort the healthy development of sports and cultural undertakings, and create a good legal environment for the successful holding of the Winter Olympics, Asian Games, and Universiade. Focus on key areas such as cultural heritage and time-honored brands, and expand public interest litigation in an orderly manner.

Strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights related to enterprises. Adhere to the equal protection of the intellectual property rights of Chinese and foreign rights holders in accordance with the law, severely punish criminal acts that infringe on the intellectual property rights of enterprises, strengthen anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition procuratorial supervision, strengthen procuratorial supervision in the field of trademark and patent authorization and confirmation, and maintain the market economic order of fair competition. Establish and complete liaison mechanisms between procuratorates and enterprises, closely aligning with the judicial protection needs of rights holders.

Strengthen the protection of agriculture-related intellectual property rights. The Supreme People's Procuratorate, together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, has issued guiding opinions on the protection of intellectual property rights in the seed industry, and released typical cases on the protection of intellectual property rights related to agriculture, so as to provide effective judicial protection for the revitalization of the seed industry. In the past three years, a total of 66 criminal cases of counterfeit agricultural intellectual property rights have been accepted, examined and prosecuted by 155 people. Strengthen the protection of geographical indication products and safeguard national interests and social public interests by prosecuting the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks and carrying out public interest litigation.

Punish malicious litigation of intellectual property rights in accordance with law. Since July 2022, the Supreme People's Procuratorate has deployed and carried out special supervision of malicious litigation of intellectual property rights across the country, actively participated in the joint governance of prominent problems such as malicious preemptive registration and trademark hoarding, and guided Guangdong, Beijing, Zhejiang, Hunan and other places to handle a number of malicious litigation supervision cases. By the end of 2023, procuratorial organs across the country had supervised 6,144 retrials by courts and transferred 153 suspected criminal leads by submitting prosecutorial counter-appeals and formulating and issuing procuratorial recommendations for retrials. The State Intellectual Property Office has invalidated 129 trademarks involving Olympic symbols and the names of martyrs on the basis of malicious registration clues transferred by the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

The third is to focus on coordinated protection and promote the construction of a large-scale protection pattern for intellectual property rights.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate and the State Intellectual Property Office and other departments have deepened coordination and cooperation by countersigning collaborative protection opinions, listing and supervising key cases, carrying out the selection and construction of protection demonstration zones, organizing training in the same class, and jointly praising the advanced. Strengthen communication and cooperation with institutions of higher learning, scientific research institutions, administrative organs, industry associations, and so forth, to provide theoretical and intellectual support for procurators in performing their duties. Through expert consultation and argumentation, hiring technical investigators, specially invited assistant procurators, and so forth, to improve systems for professional assistance in handling cases. Actively participated in the "IPKey China" cooperation program, invited the delegation of EU IP prosecutors to visit China, sent staff to participate in international conferences for many times, and jointly held special seminars to learn from each other and build consensus.

Fourth, focus on professional construction and deepen the comprehensive performance of intellectual property prosecution duties.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate has successively issued the Opinions on Comprehensively Strengthening Intellectual Property Procuratorial Work in the New Era, the Guidelines for the People's Procuratorate's Handling of Intellectual Property Cases, and other documents, establishing and improving the mechanism of "one case and four investigations", the system of informing rights holders of their litigation rights and obligations, and cross-regional procuratorial cooperation, and improving the top-level design. In light of actual conditions, procuratorial organs in various localities are actively exploring case-handling mechanisms such as the "double reporting system" that are both distinctive and effective. In addition, the Supreme People's Procuratorate has also effectively improved its ability to perform its duties comprehensively by formulating and issuing Guiding Cases and Typical Cases, establishing contact points for handling cases, forming a talent pool, organizing special training, compiling and distributing work information, and deepening operational assistance to Tibet and Xinjiang and exchanges between the East and the West.

2024 marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and a crucial year for achieving the goals and tasks of the 14th Five-Year Plan. The procuratorial organs will highlight the "high-quality and efficient handling of every case", deepen and promote the comprehensive performance of intellectual property procuratorial duties, actively carry out special actions such as "procuratorial protection of enterprises" and "procuratorial protection of people's livelihood", and carry out special supervision on the punishment of malicious litigation of intellectual property rights on a regular basis. In the new era and new journey, we will strive to write a better answer sheet for intellectual property protection with high-quality and efficient procuratorial duties, continue to play an active role in stimulating the innovation and creativity of the whole society, maintaining fair competition and market order, and promoting the prosperity and development of culture, so as to serve the construction of a market-oriented, law-based, and international business environment, and boost the development of new quality productive forces.

Thank you for the uterine inspection. Next, the second agenda item is the release of typical cases of intellectual property protection by procuratorial organs. The full text of the case has been printed and distributed to everyone, and I would like to invite Director Liu Taizong to briefly introduce the situation of this batch of typical cases.