Recently, the Supreme People’s Court issued the Judicial Interpretation II on Some Issues Concerning Application of Laws to Trial of Patent Infringement Disputes (hereinafter Interpretation II).
This is a further interpretation after the Supreme People’s Court issued in 2009 the Judicial Interpretation on Some Issues Concerning Application of Laws to Trial of Patent Infringement Disputes, with a purpose to meet the increase of patent infringement cases for the past 5 years. Over years, technologies have developed to become more advanced and complicated, and the market value has grown even larger. In 2011, the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court carried out special research on the criterion of patent infringement, and made thorough investigations. In 2014, Judicial Interpretation II was listed as one of the proposed plans.
There are a total of 31 articles in Interpretation II, covering claim interpretation, contributory infringement, standard implementation defense, legitimate defense, injunction of infringements, calculation of damages, and the influence of patent invalidation on infringement litigations. The main contents can be summarized in the following three aspects:
1. The judicial protection of patent right is enhanced to solve the outstanding issues in patent judicial practice such as long pending period for patent trial, low damages, etc. Under Article 21, the contributory infringement system is defined to strengthen the protection of patentee; Article 27 prescribes that some burden of proofs concerning the damages can be transferred to the infringer.
2. The stability of patent is strengthened to provide a clear legal anticipation for the public. Article 5, 10 and 12 define that the emphatic terms in preamble feature, preparation process and value feature in claim can limit the patent protection scope. Sufficient attention should be paid to these features at the stage of filing applications, since the court will not examine them in patent infringement disputes.
3. The principle of balance of interests will be insisted to clarify the legal boundaries between patent rights and other civil rights. The legitimate rights of the patentee will be protected and inappropriate extension of patent rights should be avoided. For instance, Article 26 prescribes that the court will not award an injunction if the national and public interests are harmed, but the infringer will be ruled to pay reasonable fees.
Interpretation II further enriches the legal system for patent protection and can restrain patent infringement. It will encourage entrepreneurship and innovation in China.
