On the Sixth Meeting of the Thirteenth Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) opened on October 22, 2018, the Supreme People’s Court submitted a proposal of “Decision on Certain Issues Concerning the Judicial Proceedings of Patent and Other Intellectual Property Cases (Draft)” for deliberation. Mr. Zhou Qiang, the chief justice of the Supreme People’s Court, made a statement. On October 23, 2018, a group deliberation on the Draft was conducted.
As Mr. Zhou introduced, in order to unify the judgmental criteria of intellectual property cases and optimize the legal environment to promote scientific and technological innovation, the Intellectual Property (IP) Tribunal of Supreme People’s Court will be established to mainly hear appellate cases concerning technology, such as appeals concerning invention patents and utility model patents. Ruling such cases requires more expertise not only in the scientific and technological field, but also in the relevant legal field, and the judgments thereof have a greater impact on the innovation, and thus are more important for constructing an innovation-oriented nation. In order to accomplish the transition, the Constitution and Law Committee of the National People's Congress proposes to add a new clause, which is “the appellate cases and the protested cases are filed in compliance with the regulations set by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC)”, in the “Organic Law of People’s Court (Drafted Amendments)” to expand the scope of cases that the Supreme People’s Court hears. The Supreme People’s Court will also provide a judicial interpretation to further refine and clarify relevant issues such as jurisdictions of the IP Tribunal.
Under the current law, the first instance of a civil case or an administrative case that demands more technical expertise such as a dispute arises from a patent is within the jurisdiction of an Intermediate People’s court. The appellant who gains unfavorable judgment appeals the first-instance judgment of an Intermediate People’s court to a local Supreme People’s Court.
According to the Draft, the “level of trial” is amended as that the IP Tribunal of Supreme People’s Court, upon its establishment, will concentrate on hearing appellate cases concerning patents and so on. An appellate case against the first-instance judgment of an Intermediate People’s court will no longer be heard by a local Supreme People’s Court.
If the parties of a civil case that demands more technical expertise, such as about inventions, utility models, new varieties of plants, layout designs of integrated circuits, technical secrets, computer software, monopoly and so on, are not satisfied with the first-instance judgment, or the parties of an administrative case that demands more technical expertise, such as about patents, new varieties of plants, layout designs of integrated circuits, technology secrets, computer software, monopoly and so on, are not satisfied with the first-instance judgment, they shall appeal to the Supreme People’s Court within a certain period of time defined by the relevant law.
The Draft also stipulates that a case as identified above, of which the first-instance judgment, the adjudication, or the mediation agreement has come into effect, that is subject to a retrial or a protest and applicable to the procedure for trial supervision, shall be heard by the Supreme People’s Court, or the Supreme People’s Court can appoint a lower people’s court to retry the case according to the relevant law.
With respect to the legal convergence, Mr. Zhou said that after the new law, i.e., “Decision on Certain Issues Concerning the Judicial Proceedings of Patent and Other Intellectual Property Cases” becomes effective, appellate cases against the first-instance judgments and adjudications made by the intellectual property courts established in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou concerning inventions, utility models, copyrights and trademark rights will be heard by the IP Tribunal of Supreme People Court; the rest of the appeals against the first-instance judgments and adjudications made by the intellectual property courts will still be heard by a local Supreme People’s Court.
Patent cases and cases alike are highly field specific and complex. Concentrating the judicial authority of hearing the civil cases and the administrative cases of the second-instance to the IP Tribunal of Supreme People’s Court achieves the connection of two judicial proceedings, i.e., judging the validity of intellectual property right and determining the infringement, which is advantageous for solving the problem of application of different judgmental criteria that hinders the scientific and technological developments. It will also be beneficial to improving the quality and efficiency of intellectual property trial judgments, increasing the judicial protection for intellectual property rights, and promoting the public credibility of the judiciary.
