I. The Supreme People’s Court and Local People’s Courts Successively Released White Books on Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property in 2012 and Model Cases.
On April 22, before World Intellectual Property Day, the Supreme People’s Court released the White Book on Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property By Chinese Courts in 2012 (the ”White Book”) and Model Cases embodying new Issues related to intellectual property protection.
Afterwards, the local people’s courts successively released local white books on local intellectual property protection and local model cases. On April 25, the Shanghai High People’s Court held a press conference and released the White Book of the Shanghai People’s Court on Intellectual Property Adjudication in 2012 and Ten Key Cases.
According to this White Book, the number of intellectual property cases accepted by the people’s courts in 2012 increased substantially. The number of first instance civil intellectual property cases accepted by the local people’s courts grew by 45.99% to 87,419 cases; the number of administrative intellectual property cases grew by 20.35% to 2,928 cases; and the number of criminal intellectual property cases grew by 129.61% to 13,104 cases. Additionally, the Ipad trademark case and the Han Han vs Baidu copyright infringement cases were selected as two of the Ten Key Cases.
(From the websites of the Supreme People’s Court, the Chinese courts, and the Shanghai courts)
II. The Supreme People’s Court Amended the Regulations on Jurisdiction for Patent Cases.
Recently, the Supreme People’s Court issued the Decision of the Supreme’ People’s Court on Amending the Regulations of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Problems in Application of Law in Hearing Patent Dispute Cases (the “Decision”), which takes effect on April 15. The only change in the amendment was to a provision that states that the Supreme People’s Court can, according to the actual circumstances, appoint the local people’s court to have first instance jurisdiction in patent dispute cases. Previously, the Supreme Court implemented relatively centralized jurisdiction for patent dispute cases. This meant that first instant patent cases were only under the jurisdiction of the intermediate people’s courts of the places where the people’s governments of province, autonomous regions, or municipalities directly under the Central Government are located. Additionally, intermediate people’s courts could be appointed by the Supreme People’s Court. According to the Decision, however, the local people’s courts with relatively large number of civil patent cases and capacity for trial of civil patent cases can be authorized to try the first instance of patent cases.
(From the website of the Supreme People’s Court)
III. The Trademark Office Issued the Notice on Recording Law Firms, and DeBund Was Successively Recorded in the First Batch.
On March 25, the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce issued the Notice on Recording Law Firms (the “Notice”) on its website. The Notice confirms the list of the first batch of law firms successively recorded, which may now works as trademark agents. Shanghai DeBund Law Offices is one of the first batch of law firms.
(From the website of the Trademark Office)
IV. The Ministry of Commerce Issued the Provisions on Regulating Competitive Behaviors in the Area of Investment Abroad and Cooperation.
The Ministry of Commerce issued the Provisions on Regulating Competitive Behaviors in the Area of Investment Abroad and Cooperation (the “Provisions”). The Ministry of Commerce and local administrations of commerce will be responsible for supervision and management of unfair competitive behaviors in the area of investment abroad and cooperation. The Provisions list unfair competitive behaviors and emphasize that enterprises must comply with and go through the administrative formalities in the area of investment abroad and cooperation. The Provisions will go into effect thirty days after their release date.
(From the website of the Ministry of Commerce)
Quoted from DeBund Newsletter of May, 2013
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You Yunting：86-21-52134918 youyunting@debund.com/yytbest@gmail.com
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