China’s Courts
receive 305,000 New IP Cases in 2018, Up 40.7% Year-on-Year
Lin
Guanghai, Deputy Chief Judge of Civil Adjudication Tribunal
No.3
(IPR Division), SPC
Regarding
the relevant data on IP cases in 2018, Lin Guanghai, Deputy Chief Judge of Civil
Adjudication Tribunal No.3 (IPR Division) of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC)
said on the 9th China IP International Annual Forum that the courts in China
received a total of 305,000 IP cases for first instance and 292,000 cases were
adjudicated in 2018, with an increase of 40.7% and 41.2% respectively compared
with 2017. Among the new cases, there were 283,000 civil cases, 13,000
administrative cases and 8,600 criminal cases. The civil cases include 195,000
copyright cases, 52,000 trademark cases, 22,000 patent cases, and 14,000 other
types.
On
January 12, the 9th China IP International Annual Forum and 2019 Annual
Conference of In-House IP Managers in China, hosted by China IP Magazine was held in Beijing. Liu Chuntian, Chairman of the China Intellectual Property
Law Association, Lin Guanghai, Deputy Chief Judge of Civil Adjudication
Tribunal No.3 (IPR Division) of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) and Lei Xiaoyun,
Director General of the IP Utilization and Promotion Department of National
Intellectual Property Administration, PRC attended the opening ceremony and
delivered speeches. The opening ceremony was hosted by Tommy Zhang, the
President and Editor-in-Chief of China IP Magazine.
Lin
Guanghai firstly congratulated the successful hosting of the forum on behalf of Civil Adjudication Tribunal No.3 (IPR Division) of SPC.
At
the beginning of 2019, Civil Adjudication Tribunal No.3 (IPR Division) of SPC
was set up as a permanent establishment of SPC, responsible for handling more
technical civil cases such as patent cases, and administrative second-instance cases
across the country. At the same time, SPC also approved the establishment of
cross-regional IP Court in eight municipalities including Tianjin, Zhengzhou,
Changsha, Xi'an, Nanchang, Changchun and Lanzhou in 2018. At present, the local
courts across country have established 19 IP courts with inter-regional jurisdiction.
In
the same period, the IP Courts in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou accepted
30,899 first-instance and second-instance cases in total, and 25,737 cases were
settled. Beijing Intellectual Property Court accepted 1,517 patent
administrative cases, with a year-on-year growth of 30.7%, and 1,007 cases were
settled, with a year-on-year growth of 33.7%. 11,974 cases of trademark
administrative cases were accepted, with a year-on-year growth of 40.2%, and 10,087
cases were settled, with a year-on-year increase of 53.4%.
Lin
Guanghai also indicated that IP trials will play a leading role of judicial
protection in a better way in 2019, including:
First,
China implements the project to improve the quality of patent and carries out
the reform to facilitate the trademark registration, which requires the
people's court to better perform the supervisory function in the trial of the
confirmation and authorization of patent and trademark rights, and to innovate the mechanism in the trial of infringement cases in
order to substantially resolve the disputes. Through trials, it is necessary to
warn all parties that a patent or trademark is more than a piece of paper.
Competitors can't fight for the piece of paper unscrupulously. Through trials,
we shall clearly tell people that the court is not a battlefield. Loser is
guilty on the battlefield but the guilty loses in the
court.
Second,
the legislation is accelerating the systematization of the punitive damages
system for IPR. The Trademark Law has already stipulated the principle of punitive damages. the Civil Code Tort Liability (Draft) and the Amendments to the Patent Law, which are currently submitted for
legislative review, also stipulated punitive damages for IPR, reflecting the
general aspirations of the society. This requires the judgments of the
infringement compensation to change, and conform to the direction, principle
and spirit of the law revision, resolutely increase the cost of infringement
compensation and abusing the appealing right, and exert sufficient deterrent
force.
In
addition, Lin pointed out that there are still many other aspects need to be
highly valued. For example, the new era requires further strengthening and
improving the protection of IPR on the Internet, and protection of trade
secrets, building new patterns in these areas to achieve a new balance.
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