Recently, the Supreme People’s Court issued the White Paper on Intellectual Property Protection Status by Chinese Courts in 2016 (hereinafter the white paper), 10 important cases and 50 typical cases concerning intellectual property protection by Chinese courts.
According to the white paper, in 2016, local courts accepted 8,352 first instance criminal cases, a decrease of 23.9% as compared with the same period of the previous year, concluded 8,601 first instance criminal intellectual property cases, a decrease of 20.43%, and 10,334 persons were given criminal punishment, a decrease of 17.85%. The number of intellectual property cases steadily grew in 2016. Chinese courts accepted 177,705 new intellectual property cases and concluded 171,708 cases, an increase of 19.07% and 20.86% respectively. The number of cases accepted by Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong accounted for 70.37% of the national total.
The Supreme People’s Court also released the outline of judicial protection of China’s intellectual property (2016-2020), which is the first protection outline for a specialized trial field. The outline defines the guiding concept, basic principles, major objectives and key measures of intellectual property protection.
It is noted that in 2017, Chinese courts will focus on the following three aspects: first, insisting on case-handling as the top priority to justly and effectively deal with intellectual property cases and create sound legal, market and cultural environment; second, continuing the reforms in intellectual property judicial system and optimizing the allocation of trial resources; third, strengthening sentencing guidelines and advancing related judicial interpretation work.
