The SPC issues opinions to strengthen intellectual property adjudication in the new era

Beijing, October 31 (Reporter Sun Ying) According to the "News in Progress" of the Voice of China of the Central Radio and Television Corporation, the "Opinions of the Supreme People's Court on Strengthening the Adjudication of Intellectual Property Rights 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") was issued, proposing 20 policy measures for comprehensively strengthening 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.

Lin Guanghai, president of the Third Civil Division of the Supreme People's Court, introduced that the "Opinions" focus on nine aspects and propose measures to strengthen the implementation of judicial protection of intellectual property rights. The nine aspects include scientific and technological innovation achievements, copyright and related rights, commercial signs, intellectual property rights in emerging fields, agricultural scientific and technological achievements, intellectual property rights of traditional Chinese medicine, trade secrets, anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition, and the legitimate rights and interests of scientific and technological innovation subjects. Give full play to the adjudication function, serve major strategies such as innovation-driven development, cultural power, and rural revitalization, serve to ensure the healthy development of new fields and new formats, the inheritance and innovation of traditional Chinese medicine, create a market rule of law environment for fair competition, and stimulate the vitality of innovation and creativity.

(Source: China Court Network)

In terms of improving the overall effectiveness of judicial protection of intellectual property rights and striving to create a rule of law environment conducive to innovation and creation, the Opinions clearly put forward that punitive damages should be applied in accordance with the law, and the compensation for intellectual property infringement damages and the punishment of infringement should be strengthened, so as to timely and effectively curb infringement. Strengthen the regulation of acts such as false and malicious litigation of intellectual property rights, prevent the abuse of intellectual property rights, and advance the establishment of a creditworthiness system for intellectual property litigation. On how to give play to the role of adjudication and strengthen the rule of law governance in cyberspace. Lin Guanghai said that according to statistics, the Internet courts in Beijing, Hangzhou and Guangzhou received a total of 217256 new Internet cases of various types from 2018 to 2020, and concluded 208,920 cases. The people's courts have properly tried a large number of typical intellectual property cases involving unfair competition involving the Internet in accordance with the law, effectively standardizing the order of competition in the cyberspace market. In the "Chen Li et al. Copyright Infringement Case", the people's court sentenced all eight defendants to actual sentences and imposed the recovery of illegal gains, demonstrating their firm determination to strictly protect intellectual property rights.

Gao Zhonglin, Vice President of the SPC Intellectual Property Tribunal, introduced that as an important part of the construction project of implementing high-level intellectual property adjudication institutions, since its establishment on January 1, 2009, the SPC Intellectual Property Tribunal has further unified its adjudication standards, further improved the quality and efficiency of trials, and further enhanced its judicial credibility and international influence.

Gao Zhonglin said that in the benchmark case, in the Huawei v. Kang Vincent case, the first act preservation ruling with the nature of an "injunction order" in China's intellectual property field was made, and the first time to explore the application of daily fines. In OPPO v. Sharp, it was confirmed for the first time that Chinese courts had jurisdiction over global licensing fee disputes over standard essential patents. In the case of infringement of "vanillin" technical secrets, the award of compensation was 159 million yuan, which was the highest amount of effective compensation in the history of the people's courts. In the case of infringement of "Cabo" technical secrets, the Supreme People's Court made the first punitive damages and awarded more than 30 million yuan in damages of five times the top grid.