2011-05-02 11:13:52
On April 24, the Supreme People's Court held a news conference in Suzhou City of Jiangsu Province to publish the top ten cases in IPR judicial protection and the top five typical cases. It was reported that these cases were chosen from 140 cases submitted by local Higher People's Courts and 300 cases tried by the Supreme People's Court in 2010. These chosen cases, which had great impact on the society, were mainly civil and partially administrative and criminal. To choose and promote typical cases was an important measure to regulate judicial action and enhance the level of the administration of justice.
Embody the principle of equal judicial protection
Sun Jungong, the news spokesman of the Supreme People's Court, introduced that the cases concerning violations of foreigners' intellectual property rights kept a constant rise. In 2010, a total of 1,369 foreign-related IP civil cases of first instance were tried by people's courts at all levels, up 0.59% over 2009. IP administrative cases of first instance in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and other foreign countries amounted to 1004, accounting for 41.99 of all IP administrative cases.
There were five foreign-related IP cases among the top ten. Some were Chinese citizen or enterprises vs foreign parties, such as the invention patent case related with the "elevated three-dimensional building " of French Hall in Shanghai Expo, and the trade secret case involved in the prescription and production technology of "Tianfu Cola"; some were foreign right holders vs Chinese parties, such as the civil case involving the violation of Eli Lilly's patent; and others were foreign parties vs foreign parties, such as the trademark infringement case of "Crocodile". The judgment of the above cases fully embodied the principle of equal judicial protection and thus achieved outstanding effects.
Formulate new rule of adjudication upon new cases
As Sun Jungong introduced, some rules of adjudication upon the new cases were clearly carried out. For example, the court further defined the trial rules upon the unfair competition involved in interfering with search engine service. Presently, the unfair competition in network environment had triggered widespread concern of the network industry. Obviously, the network-related case not only required to understand the relationship involved in unfair competition, but also to investigate technical facts, that is, to identify the main interfering body under network technology environment.
The ruling on these cases should not be
ust limited to the clarification whether the operators would belong to the same type of industry or service. Instead, the ruling should be based on the adequate application and deep understanding of the provisions of unfair competition law. The network technology experts should play their full role in investigating the technical facts. These initiatives were significant to the trial of such similar cases. Meanwhile, the ruling would play a guiding role in regulating the competition under network environment.
Institute the publication of typical cases
The news conference on April 24 was first held by the Supreme People's Court in a city other than Beijing.
On April 23, the Supreme People's Court held a founded ceremony in Suzhou, announcing to establish five "basic demonstration courts for Chinese IP judicial protection", five "investigation bases for Chinese IP judicial protection" and five "theoretical research bases for Chinese IP judicial protection".
The Supreme People's Court signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with Suzhou New District Community and meanwhile granted Suzhou Hi-Tech District as the base to choose and publish Chinese typical IP judicial protection cases. [The Chinese version is available on ip.people.com.cn]