The year 2023 marks the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court of China. As of December 31, 2023, the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court of China had received more than 18,900 cases of various types and concluded over 15,700 cases. Over the past five years, the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court has adhered to the judicial principles of strict protection, active adjudication, and overall coordination in intellectual property trials. This approach has effectively safeguarded technological innovation, maintained fair market competition, served high-level opening-up, and deepened judicial system reform, achieving the expected goals of reform and presenting numerous highlights.
Increasing Compensation Amounts
Over the past five years, the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court has adhered to the principle of strict protection, intensified judicial protection of key core technologies, key areas, and emerging industries, rigorously implemented the punitive damages system, and harshly sanctioned malicious infringement acts. As a result, there has been a growing number of cases with high compensation amounts. For example, in the patent infringement and technology secret infringement case involving “Melamine,” the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court upheld the claimant’s claim of 218 million yuan in two cases at the second instance, and the claimant ultimately received compensation of 658 million yuan, setting a record for domestic intellectual property rights protection. In the case of technology secret infringement involving “Rubber Anti-aging Agent,” the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court ruled that the defendant should compensate the plaintiff with 202 million yuan. In the case of technology secret licensing involving “Diesel Engine,” the defendant was ordered to compensate 200 million yuan.
Maintaining Market Fairness
Over the past five years, the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court has strengthened judicial review in the field of social livelihood and anti-monopoly, concluding 146 cases of monopoly. In multiple cases, it has identified the sued behaviors as constituting monopolies and successively released three batches of typical cases of anti-monopoly and unfair competition.
Enhancing Protection of Trade Secrets
To address the weak links in the protection of trade secrets, the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court has fully utilized means such as transferring the burden of proof, effectively reducing the burden of proof on rights holders, and increasing the intensity of infringement judgments to resolutely curb infringement acts. Over the past five years, the court has received 437 cases of infringement of trade secrets and concluded 304 cases. In the unfair competition dispute case involving “Lithium-ion Positive Material,” the court explicitly evaluated the negative behavior of the transfer of technology secrets to other companies after breaking the contract with integrity, fully supporting the plaintiff’s claim for 50 million yuan in compensation, which was immediately enforced.
Continuing Reform Efforts
In the past 5 years, the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme Court has not only enhanced case handling but also insisted on providing supervision and guidance for lower-court judgments, strengthening internal judicial management, and promoting the overall improvement of its own and the national-level courts’ intellectual property trial levels.
Improving Mechanisms for Determining Technical Facts
The Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court has led the establishment of the “National Court Technical Investigation Talent Pool” and sharing mechanism. Up to now, 719 experts have been included in the pool, and in 2023, 55 technical investigation experts have been deployed nationwide as needed. It has also strengthened internal judicial management, improved the supervision and restriction mechanisms for the operation of judicial powers, adhered to random case allocation, fully implemented case retrieval and disclosure of information on related cases, and improved the system of professional judges’ conferences. Over the past five years, the court has convened 271 professional judges’ conferences, discussed 1,406 cases, effectively ensuring the uniformity of its own judgment standards.
Advancing the Construction of Intelligent Courts
In 2023, for example, the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme Court handled 93.3% of newly received appeal cases through electronic transfer, achieving full coverage of first-instance courts and reducing the average transit time for appeal transfer to less than one day. Over the past five years, the court has completed 9,565 cases through online hearings; fully implemented electronic service, with a success rate of 96.1% and an average service time shortened to 0.69 days.