Recently, the CPC Central Committee General Office and the State Council General Office issued the Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Reform and Innovation in the Trial of Intellectual Property Rights (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions). At a press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council on February 28, Tao Kaiyuan, Vice President of the Supreme People's Court, read the Opinions.


Tao Kaiyuan said that Opinions is the first milestone programmatic document for intellectual property trial issued exclusively by the China Affairs Office and the State Council and established the guiding ideology, basic principles, reform goals and key measures of the people's court for intellectual property trial , Consolidating the theoretical, institutional and organizational basis of the cause of intellectual property judiciary and portraying the grand blueprint for the further development of the judiciary of intellectual property by the people's court.


Protecting intellectual property is to protect innovation


"Judiciary is the most effective, fundamental and authoritative tool for protecting intellectual property." Tao Kaiyuan said: The Opinion sets "setting up the concept of protecting intellectual property as an idea of protecting innovation" as an important part of the guiding ideology and will further stimulate the enthusiasm for innovation in the whole society , And continuously enhance the innovation and competitiveness of our economy.


Intellectual property protection is the basic means to stimulate innovation, is the basic guarantee for the driving force of innovation and is the core element of international competitiveness. The Opinions put forward the goal of strengthening reform and innovation in the field of intellectual property trial, which is based on improving the system of intellectual property litigation, focusing on strengthening the construction of the court system of intellectual property, safeguarding the construction of the trial team of intellectual property rights, and constantly improving the trial of intellectual property Quality and efficiency, step up judicial protection of intellectual property rights, curb infringement of intellectual property rights effectively, further enhance the credibility and international influence of the judiciary in the field of intellectual property, speed up the system of trial of intellectual property rights and the ability of adjudication to move towards modernization.


According to reports, from 2013 to 2017, 81,564 cases of various types of civil, administrative and criminal cases involving intellectual property were newly received by courts across the country, and 78,1257 cases were concluded. With the number of judges not significantly increased, the number of cases concluded by the people's courts and the rate of closure of cases have risen sharply, both the rate of retrial and the rate of remand hearings have dropped, and the leading role of judicial protection of intellectual property has become more apparent. In recent years, the People's Court has demonstrated the distinct attitude of encouraging and protecting innovation through hearing cases involving intellectual property rights and clarifying legal standards and codes of conduct.


Solve the lawsuit proof of difficulty, low compensation


In recent years, the People's Court has made efforts to solve the "hard-to-prove" issue for intellectual property rights owners, strengthened the construction of a lawsuit integrity system in the field of intellectual property, and sanctions are imposed according to law in the case of grave violations of the principle of good faith, damage, concealment and fabrication of evidence. This Opinion proposes to give full play to the role of notarization in fixing fixed evidence in intellectual property cases through various means. It also explores the establishment of rules such as evidence disclosure and evidence blocking and excluding, reasonably allocating the burden of proof and appropriately alleviating the burden of proof on the part of right holders.


Tao Kaiyuan said that in order to solve the problem of "low compensation" for intellectual property infringement litigation, the people's court, guided by respecting intellectual property and encouraging innovation and utilization, takes the realization of market value of intellectual property as a guideline and tries hard to build a tort-based compensation system supplemented by compensation Judicial identification mechanism.


In intensifying the penalties for infringement of intellectual property infringement and reducing the cost of safeguarding rights, the "Opinion" is clear. For cases of repeated infringement, malicious infringement and other serious infringement, compensation should be increased according to law, the amount of compensation should be increased, and the losing party should bear the rights Cost, so that infringers to pay a heavy price, effectively curbing and deterring infringement of intellectual property. We must work hard to create a legal atmosphere in which we can not infringe and refuse to infringe the rights and achieve a historic change in the strict protection of intellectual property.


Building International Intellectual Property Dispute Settlement "Preferably"


"Opinions" try their best to modernize the trial system and modernize the judicial power, and actively construct a specialized intellectual property trial system that is optimized in resources, scientific in operation and highly effective and authoritative. "Tao Taoyuan said that efforts should be made to build the Chinese courts into the parties' trust International Intellectual Property Dispute Settlement "prefers".


The "Opinions" not only put forward the proposal of establishing an appellate hearing mechanism for intellectual property cases at the national level, but also enact specialization, jurisdictional centralization, procedure intensification and personnel specialization in related intellectual property cases, and also proposed to explore the mechanism of off-site trial of trans-regional intellectual property cases and improve Intellectual property court people property protection system.


In recent years, the construction of a specialized trial system for intellectual property by the people's court has entered a "fast track" and the trial mode of intellectual property has taken a significant leap forward. Since the establishment of the Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou Intellectual Property Courts at the end of 2014, the road to specialization of intellectual property with Chinese characteristics has been tentatively explored. Since 2017, 15 mid-level courts in Nanjing, Suzhou and Wuhan have set up special trial courts and intellectual property cases involving cross-jurisdictional patents. As of the end of 2017, there were 224 Intermediate People's Courts designated by the Supreme People's Court with exclusive jurisdiction over patents, new varieties of plants, layout design of integrated circuits, monopolies and cases involving well-known trademarks.


Tao Kaiyuan said that the Supreme People's Court has established the basic judicial policies of intellectual property with "leading by law, strictly protecting, classifying and implementing policies in a coordinated manner" and leading the trial of intellectual property with innovations, the rule of law, the market and an open judicial concept to ensure the creation and protection of intellectual property And the application of the law applicable standards uniform, effective and effective.