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Shanghai High People's Court Issued 23 Opinions on Serving and Safeguarding the Building of a City with IP Strength
To implement the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee, CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee and the Supreme People's Court, adapt to the needs of the new era, comprehensively strengthen the IP judicial protection, and provide effective judicial services and support for building a city with IP strength, Shanghai High People's Court ("SHPC") held a press conference on July 13, 2022 and issued the Opinions on Strengthening the Trial of Cases Involving Intellectual Property Rights in the New Era to Provide Effective Judicial Services and Support for Building Shanghai into a City with IP Strength (the "Opinions"). This was the sixth session on providing judicial services and support for the high-quality regional development by Shanghai courts. It is reported that in order to fully implement the Outline for Building an Intellectual Property Powerhouse (2021-2035), the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee on strengthening IP protection, the Outline for Building Shanghai into a City with IP Strength (2021-2035), Shanghai Plan for Protection and Application of Intellectual Property Rights during the "14th Five-Year Plan" Period, Opinions of the Supreme People's Court on Strengthening the Trial of Cases Involving Intellectual Property Rights in the New Era to Provide Effective Judicial Services and Support for Building China into an Intellectual Property Rights Power, SHPC drafted, deliberated and adopted the Opinions in June 2022 based on full investigation of the industrial development and IP protection needs under its jurisdiction as well as opinions of relevant departments, experts and scholars, combined with the guiding principles of the above-mentioned documents and the actual work of Shanghai courts. According to Zhang Bin, the Opinions focuses on Shanghai's strategic plan on strengthening "Four Functions" and deepening the construction of "Five Centers", actively responds to the needs for IP judicial protection and social concerns in the new era, and especially emphasizes "One Goal, Two Main Tasks, Three Dimensions and Four Principles". Among them, "One Goal" refers to comprehensively strengthening the IP judicial protection to provide effective judicial services and support for building Shanghai into an international IP center, which is consistent with the development goal set forth in the Outline for Building Shanghai into a City with IP Strength (2021-2035). "Two Main Tasks" are the two development tasks during IP judicial protection by Shanghai courts, namely: (i) realize higher-quality development of IP trials; and (ii) further strengthen the development of judicial governance system and governance capacity. "Three Dimensions " refer to the work in three aspects as specified in the Opinions: (i) serve the high-quality development of Shanghai Municipality with impartial administration of justice as the core; (ii) improve IP protection by optimizing the mechanisms; and (iii) effectively implement the tasks on the basis of strengthening support. "Four Principles" refer to the four working principles put forward and adhered to in the Opinions, namely high-quality guidance, high-level protection, digital empowerment, and international vision, which reflects the transformation of IP creation from "quantity" to "quality", the development need of IP protection from "strict protection" to "high-level protection", and the tasks of Shanghai concerning urban digital transformation and upgrade and in building itself into a leading center for international IP protection. At the press conference, Liu Junhua made an in-depth interpretation of the 23 measures in four parts of the Opinions. The nine measures in Part 2 provide concrete steps to strengthen IP judicial protection and to serve and safeguard the construction of "Five Centers" by Shanghai from the dimension of impartial administration of justice. Among them, measures 4-9 specify the requirements on traditional fields (e.g. S&T innovations, cultural creations, trade marks, trade secrets, etc.) and special fields (e.g. emerging IP field, competition order, etc.) respectively, for example, strictly protecting S&T innovations, and serving and safeguarding the development of Shanghai into a sci-tech innovation center in the new era; strengthening IP protection in emerging fields, and serving and safeguarding urban digital transformation; strengthening administration of justice against monopoly and unfair competition, and maintaining a law-based business environment for fair competition. Measures 10-12 put forward targeted judicial protection policies on foreign trade, Internet economy, exhibition economy and other key industrial fields in Shanghai, that is, strengthen IP trials in the foreign trade field to serve and safeguard the construction of pilot free trade zones; strengthen platform-related IP trials to serve and safeguard the development of Internet economy; and strengthen exhibition-related IP trials to serve and safeguard the development of exhibition economy. The seven measures in Part 3 are seven working steps to strengthen the judicial system and capacity building and to enhance IP judicial protection from the dimension of optimizing mechanisms, that is, give full play to the advantages of the "three-in-one" trial mechanism, perfect the judicial mechanisms for rights protection, heighten the awareness of integrity in IP litigations, improve the diversified IP dispute resolution mechanism, boost cooperation on IP protection in the Yangtze River Delta region, strengthen foreign-related IP trials, etc. Part 4 puts forward four organizational, coordinating and safeguard measures to optimize the distribution of jurisdiction over IP cases, build high-quality and specialized judicial teams, speed up the digital transformation of IP trials, and strengthen publicity on IP protection from the dimension of strengthening safeguards. When answering questions from reporters, Zhang Bin explained the adjustment of jurisdiction. Concerning "optimizing the distribution of jurisdiction over IP cases" put forward in Measure 20 of the Opinions, only four primary courts in Pudong New Area, Xuhui, Yangpu and Putuo had jurisdiction over IP cases before. In June of this year, SHPC issued two regulations to adjust such jurisdiction from centralized jurisdiction to territorial jurisdiction. Zhang Bin said that the jurisdiction adjustment will bring three benefits to the IP judicial protection in Shanghai. First, it can better meet the needs for IP protection in the districts, and promote each district court and relevant units in its jurisdiction to build the "strict, wide, fast and impartial" IP protection system. Second, to a certain extent, it can solve the bottlenecks (e.g. uneven distribution of cases, insufficient case handling personnel) that restrict the development of IP trials, thereby improving trial quality and efficiency. Third, it can further facilitate and smooth the "three-in-one" trials of civil, administrative and criminal IP cases, help straighten out the coordination problem between courts and procuratorates during the trial of criminal IP cases, and work better for judicial and administrative organs to exert joint efforts in law enforcement and provide full-chain IP protection. To cope with the challenges brought by jurisdiction adjustment to the IP trial teams of Shanghai courts and meet the urgent needs of new competent courts for enhancing their judicial capacity, SHPC has constantly strengthened the construction of IP trial teams by carrying out circuit investigations, organizing online business training, and recommending lists of IP books and collections of laws. In the future, it will strengthen the guidance, further unclog the internal communication channels between three-tier courts and between new competent courts and original courts having centralized jurisdiction, promptly respond to the difficulties in the application of laws and judicial practice, strive to promote the unification of applicable laws, and ensure the trial quality and efficiency of IP cases after the adjustment of jurisdiction. Zhang Bin said Shanghai courts will earnestly implement the Outline for Building an Intellectual Property Powerhouse (2021-2035) and the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee on strengthening IP protection, adhere to people-orientation, adapt to the needs of the new era, ground their efforts in the new development stage, apply the new development philosophy, build a new development paradigm, and comprehensively enhance IP judicial protection, so as to provide effective judicial services and support for building Shanghai into a city with IP strength.
Zhang Bin, Vice President of SHPC, and Liu Junhua, Chief Judge of Intellectual Property Division, attended the conference and introduced relevant situation. Li Zeli, Spokesperson of SHPC, presided over the conference. Some NPC deputies, CPPCC members, deputies to Shanghai Municipal People's Congress, members of CPPCC Shanghai Municipal Committee, special supervisors and media reporters attended online.
