Characteristics of various types of cases

 

In response to the long cycle of litigation cases, temporary measures are actively used. In the "chip design and mass production" technical secrets infringement case, "remand + temporary injunction" adjudication was taken for the first time, which effectively improved the effectiveness of infringement relief and rights protection, timely and effective stopped infringement actions. In addition, the court also decided to prevent the right holder from "winning the lawsuit and losing the market". For the problem of low compensation and high cost, the damage compensation and reasonable expenses to support the rights are effectively increased. In the "shanransu" technical secret infringement case, 159 million RMB was awarded, which is the highest amount of compensation awarded for trade secret infringement cases in the history of people's court. Law360, a leading US legal information platform recently commented: "In the field of IPR infringement litigation, China’s courts are increasingly avoiding the application of statutory damages and applying non-statutory damages such as unjust enrichment, which shows a trend of increasing the amount of damages awarded."

 

Third, the law has stopped dishonest litigation practices. In a number of cases, such as the "Wire Winding Machine" utility model patent infringement case, judicial penalties have been imposed for obstructing the collection of evidence by the court and deliberately overstaying the deadline for the presentation of evidence, in order to guide honest litigation.

 

In 2021, a total of 382 new foreign-related cases were received, accounting for 8.8% of all new cases received by the court, and 246 cases were concluded. In the case of patent infringement for the invention of "intramedullary nail with lock", the court issued full compensation of 20 million RMB to the foreign rights holder for refusing to submit its books, demonstrating China's open, fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for the development of science and technology.

 

(i) Promoting a systematic project of unified adjudication standards

 

Focusing on establishing exemplary cases, editing and publishing the Division's key decisions for 2019 and 2020 (bilingual version)

 

(ii) Exploring and improving new types of case adjudication mechanisms

 

Continuously improve the diversified technical fact-finding mechanism based on the technical investigation officer system, with expert assistance, expert jury, technical consultation and technical appraisal as important components; and promptly adjust and enrich the "National Court Technical Investigation Talent Pool" and strengthen the nationwide deployment of technical investigators as required. The court has increased the number of technical investigation officers by four, has innovated a quota system for the application of technical investigation officers within the court, and formed a team of technical investigation volunteers within the court, so as to effectively solve the difficulties of fact finding in technical cases.

 

(iv)Making full use of the achievements of smart court infrastructure

 

Relying on the "China Mobile Court", the "Intellectual Property Court Cloud" was explored to provide online court sessions, online cross-examination, online questioning, online mediation, intensive service and other litigation services for the parties. More than 3,000 cases have been heard online, which effectively guaranteed timely responses to the judicial needs of the people during the pandemic. Exploring the application of 3D imaging of physical evidence for online all-round three-dimensional display effectively solved the problem of online cross-examination of physical evidence. The court has comprehensively implemented centralized service of process with over 98% of cases being served electronically and 26,443 people served electronically throughout the year, with a success rate of 96.4% and an average service cycle of only 12.7 hours, which significantly shortened the service cycle.