China’s IP Cases Increased by Over 40% in 2018
On April 22, just before the coming of the World Intellectual Property Day, the white paper of China’s Intellectual Property Protection in 2018 was published by the Supreme People’s Court of China, which showed that China’s IP cases increased by over 40% in 2018, especially in the area of competition cases.
It was revealed that the total number of civil, administrative and criminal cases newly accepted by the People’s Court in 2018 reached 334,951, increasing by 41.19%, compared to that of 97,709 of 2017. The sharpest increase lied in the cases of competition, rising by 63.04%, which reached 4,146.
It was introduced by Song Xiaoming, president of the IPR Division of the Supreme People’s Court that the most number of IP cases were still accepted by the courts of Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong, which occupied 65.39% of the national newly accepted civil cases for the first instance.
According to the white paper, with the development of China’s socialist market economy and the implementation of the strategy of innovation-driven development, more challenges are turning up in the area of the IP judgement with the increases of cases concerned with sophisticated technology and other emerging industries, eg: The first sound branding case of Didi concluded by the Beijing Municipal People’s Court, which was rejected for review; the serial gene technology & data concerned cases accepted by the Shanghai Municipal People’s Court including the case on the exclusive ownership which Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University prosecuted Flint of infringing human genetic resources.
It was noted by the white paper that in the past year, the quality of China’s IP judgement performed pretty well, in which there were great progress in the number of cases concluded, judgement acceptance and the rate of cases withdrawn. The intensify of punishment against the IP infringement was strengthened by the means of raising the illegal cost of the infringer, which adapted the compensation amount to the market value of the IP and protects the legal interests of the right holders efficiently. For example, in the appeal of trademark dispute and unfair competition which was concerned with the well-known electric appliance company Robam, the request for the compensation of 10 million Yuan by the right holder was accepted by the Zhejiang People’s High Court for the reason the Court identified the profits of infringement had surpassed the amount of compensation according to the related evidence, in which the value orientation of IP protection was intensified.
April 23, 2019
Source: Xinhua News Agency
Photo from: 6199pic.com
