On April 22, 2021, the Shanghai High People¡¯s Court (hereinafter referred to as the ¡°SHPC¡±) held a press conference on the occasion of the arrival of the 21st World Intellectual Property Day to release the White Paper of Intellectual Property Protection by Shanghai Courts in 2020 in both Chinese and English, Top 10 Cases on Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights by Shanghai Courts in 2020 and Top 10 Typical Cases on Enhancing Intellectual Property Rights Protection by Shanghai Courts in 2020 and officially launch the Shanghai Courts Intellectual Property Case Management System. The Shanghai Intellectual Property Court¡¯s Judicial Protection Conditions for Intellectual Property (2020) was also released at the conference. Zhang Bin, Vice President of the Court, Li Shulan, Vice President of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court, and Liu Junhua, Presiding Judge of Intellectual Property Tribunal of the SIPC, attended the press conference. Li Zeli, Director of Legal Publicity Department of the SIPC, presided over the press conference.
In 2020, Shanghai courts gave full play to the judicial function of intellectual property rights protection, accepting 40,136 intellectual property cases and concluding 37,435, up 70.21% and 59.23% year on year respectively, with significant increases in the number of cases accepted and concluded, according to the White Paper. The acceptance rate of first-instance judgments was 97.08%, up 0.83% year on year; the rate of case settlement within the trial period was 99.63%, up 0.44% year on year.
At the same time, Shanghai courts kept enhancing compensation for damage and criminal crackdown, and made full use of various temporary measures. The effect of IPR protection was also significantly improved. In the case of Dyson, known as the ¡°China¡¯s No. 1 Anti-counterfeiting Case¡±, the Pudong New Area People¡¯s Court of Shanghai sentenced 35 people to substantial punishments and fined a total of RMB 10.08 million yuan. In a pre-litigation evidence preservation involving exhibition, through joint efforts on case filing, trial and enforcement, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court completed evidence preservation in only five hours, achieving good social effects.
In 2020, Shanghai courts enhanced cooperation with relevant administrative organs and mediation organizations, gave full play to the role of the one-stop platform for diversified dispute settlement, and vigorously promoted diversified dispute settlement. Specifically, through cooperation with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Shanghai Service, Shanghai courts commissioned 18 cases for mediation, of which 6 were concluded and 3 were successfully settled. These efforts have provided a strong guarantee for Shanghai to create a world-class business environment under the rule of law. The reporter learned that recently, the Shanghai High People¡¯s Court and Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration signed the Measures on Carrying out Pilot Work for Judicial Confirmation Procedures for Administrative Mediation Agreements in Intellectual Property Disputes to push forward the implementation of the mechanism for the judicial confirmation of administrative mediations, so that breakthroughs will be achieved in diversified dispute settlement.
The long-time cost for right protection is a concern of intellectual property right holders. At the press conference, Li Shulan put emphasis on the introduction to the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court¡¯s work on improving the trial efficiency. In 2020, as the pilot unit of the reform of the separation of complex cases from simple ones in civil procedures, the Court implemented the reform of second-instance single-judge adjudication mechanism. To specify the scope and trial procedures of cases applicable to single-judge adjudication, it formulated the Procedural Guidance on the Application of Single-judge Adjudication Mechanism to Civil Cases, realizing an average of 28.63 days for the trial in the second-instance single-judge adjudication cases and a minimum of one day for case conclusion. To match with the reform, the Court also set up a quick trial team and introduced relevant working rules, further giving play to the quick trial team¡¯s function of quick trial of simple cases.
The intellectual property case management system launched by the SIPC for the first time was put into service officially at the press conference. The system consists of eight sections: ¡°Policy Information¡±, ¡°Team Building¡±, ¡°Information Exchange¡±, ¡°Judicial Big Data¡±, ¡°Technical Identification¡±, ¡°Typical Cases¡±, ¡°Research Results¡± and ¡°Intellectual Property Law Database¡±. The Court is striving to make the system a ¡°wind vane¡± for managers to make decisions, an ¡°encyclopaedia¡± for judges to handle cases, and a ¡°compass¡± to guide industrial development and public behavior, according to Wang Jing, head of the trial team of Intellectual Property Tribunal of the SIPC. She focused on explaining the relevant features of the ¡°Decision Assistance¡±, ¡°Special Trial¡±, ¡°Factor Statistics¡± and ¡°Case Analysis¡±, etc. In the column of ¡°Decision Assistance¡±, the platform pushes ¡°key cases¡± in the jurisdiction to the court administrators in real time through big data screening based on the standards of ¡°the case object should be more than 10 million yuan¡±, ¡°the company involved in the lawsuit should be one of the world¡¯s top 500 companies¡±, etc., providing support for the managers to make accurate decisions. In the column of ¡°Case Analysis¡±, after entering the name of the parties in the search bar, the number, settlement method and amount of similar cases will come into plain view, providing a reference for the judge to measure the expectations of the parties and for the Court to promote the unification of the award amounts.
¡°Judicial Big Data¡± also plays the role of ¡°taking the pulse and giving the prescriptions¡± for industrial development. Technical personnel made a demonstration by taking the e-commerce platform as an example. The ¡°Judicial Big Data¡± shows the number of cases involved on the platform declined sharply after May 2020. It was because in February of the same year, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court sent a letter of judicial advice to it, suggesting that the platform strengthen its management in relation to the click farming among the merchants on the platform. After receiving the judicial suggestion, the e-commerce platform made intermediate rectification and gave feedbacks in May, saying that it had imposed severe penalties such as deducting points, removing goods from shelves, forfeiting deposits and closing stores, and had established a system to monitor fake transactions.
The press conference also announced ¡°LEGO toy copyright infringement case¡± and other nine cases as the Top 10 Cases on Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights by Shanghai Courts in 2020 and ¡°Siemens switch design patent infringement dispute¡± and other nine cases as Top 10 Typical Cases on Enhancing Intellectual Property Rights Protection by Shanghai Courts in 2020.
Liu Junhua introduced that the selection of the ten cases mainly focused on those exemplary and typical cases in terms of law application and the social impact, and aimed to summarize judicial experience, guide the research orientation of law application, and promote the formation of consensus on intellectual property protection, in order to enhance the level of judicial protection of intellectual property rights. The selection of typical cases of enhanced protection mainly focused on those cases with a significant increase in compensation amount, obvious protection effect and efficiency in judicial protection, and aimed to summarize and promote the experience in enhanced protection and explore the path of enhanced protection, so as to further enhance the protection of intellectual property rights.
Zhang Bin said courts across the city should firmly build the concept ¡°one case is better than a dozen documents¡± in handling cases, always adhere to the principle of handling more cases and handling them well, and do utmost to create typical and model cases. Courts across the city should also further press ahead with the reform, innovation and improvement of the judicial system, and keep strengthening the building of a modern, international, professional and elite intellectual property adjudication team, so as to provide better first-class judicial services and guarantee for the strategic goal of building Shanghai into an international intellectual property protection leader with complete regime, sound system and superior environment.
Officials from the consulates general of Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States in Shanghai, heads in charge of intellectual property issues of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, the Japan External Trade Organization, and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, some deputies to the municipal people¡¯s congress, members of the CPPCC Shanghai Committee, the Shanghai Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, technical experts, and media reporters attended the press conference at the Shanghai High People¡¯s Court, while officials from the German Embassy in China and the Consulate General in Shanghai, the consulates general of Italy and Singapore in Shanghai, and heads in charge of intellectual property issues of the US-China Business Council and other organizations participated in the conference online.

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->White Paper of Intellectual Property Protection by Shanghai Courts in 2020

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->Top 10 Cases on Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights by Shanghai Courts in 2020

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--> Top 10 Typical Cases on Enhancing Intellectual Property Rights Protection by Shanghai Courts in 2020

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->Shanghai Intellectual Property Court¡¯s Judicial Protection Conditions for Intellectual Property (2020)