Recently, Zhongshan No.1 Intermediate People's Court of Guangdong Province first heard an IP case through “three-in-one” mode (civil, criminal and administrative case in one tribunal ). The court made a ruling in which the defendant Mr. Huang was sentenced to 6 months in prison in addition to a fine of 1,000 Renminbi yuan for his copyright infringement.
“Three-in-one” mode was first approved by the Supreme People's Court (SPC), and started to be effective in February 2011 in Zhongshan No.1 People’s Court. Under this mode, where an case involves civil, criminal and administrative laws, the IP tribunal within the court shall combine the case and where necessary, judges from civil tribunal and criminal tribunal will be invited to hear the case. This will avoid the different ruling or reference to laws on the basis of the same legal issues due to the hearing by different tribunals. Therefore this will save the judicial resources and improve the efficiency of adjudication and lower the litigation cost for concerned parties.
