Source: Xinhua News
On March 3rd, 2021, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) issued Supreme Court’s Interpretations on the Application of Punitive Damages in the Trial of Civil Cases of Intellectual Property Infringement, entering into force since the date of issuance. It has clarified, if the plaintiff claims that the defendant willfully infringes the intellectual property rights, and in serious circumstances of causing punitive damages, the People’s Courts shall investigate and punish according to the law. The “willful” in the Interpretation is also contained in Trademarks Law and Anti-Unfair Competition Law for malicious infringements.
Punitive damages provisions are also contained in Civil Code for willful intellectual property infringements and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law for malicious trade secret infringements. In practice, it is hard to distinguish “willful” and “malicious”, so we often use a consistent interpretation to avoid the misunderstanding that “malicious” is only used in the areas of trademark and anti-unfair competition, and “willful” is only used in other areas.
In order to play the important role of the system of punitive damages in restraining infringements and stand on the practical trials, the judicial interpretation will specify the amount of compensation determined by reference to the plaintiff’s claims and evidences provided. If the infringers provide false account books or materials, they shall be subject to legal liability according to the Civil Procedure Law.
Besides, to correctly implement the system of punitive damages in IPR infringement cases and avoid abuse of the system in practices, the Interpretation clarifies the applicable condition of punitive damages. Recently, the Supreme People’s Court will issue a series of typical cases involving punitive damages in IPR infringements, which are helpful to further understand the judicial interpretation and to guide the courts at all levels to correctly use it.
The Interpretation specifies the scope of application of punitive damages, means of "malicious " and "serious circumstances," as well as calculations for calculating damages. The Interpretation will guide the courts at all levels correctly apply the punitive damages to punish serious IPR infringements.
