Evidence of intensified intellectual property protection in trial practice

The Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Intensifying Reform, adopted at the committee’s recent plenum, again emphasised “strengthening the application and protection of intellectual property (IP)”. The Trademark Law, as amended for the third time and published in 2013, and the Copyright Law and Patent Law, currently being revised, have all added relevant provisions. In terms of the judiciary, courts at every level tend to “intensify the protection of IP” in trial practice, and the eight model cases of judicial protection of IP recently published by the Supreme People’s Court make this trend clearer. Through the study of a few model cases, it is not hard to see that intensification of the protection of IP is an inevitable trend.

Prompt protection

With respect to the relatively low rate of support by courts in the past of applications by IP rights holders for temporary injunctions, preventing rights holders from promptly prohibiting infringing acts by infringers, courts will apply preservation measures more frequently, emphasising the prompt protection of the lawful interests of IP rights holders.

The Eli Lilly preservation application case is the first case in China in which the injunction system was applied in a trade secrets infringement action in which the amended Civil Procedure Law was applied. This case reveals the court’s prominent use of preservation measures to resolve the problem of the effectiveness of rights protection. Relevant rights holders should grasp this trend to fully utilise such means of relief.

Wang Yadong is the executive partner and Lu Lei is a partner at Run Ming Law Office