Evolution of admission of new evidence in trademark lawsuits

After the central government acceded to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), it amended the trademark law accordingly, pursuant to the relevant agreement in 2001, by requiring trademark administrative actions to be subject to judicial review. If a party is not satisfied with a judgement made by the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB), it may bring an administrative lawsuit at the Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court within a statutory deadline.

Since 2001, caseload involving trademark administrative litigation has increased dramatically, from 19 cases in 2002 to just over 2,000 cases in 2010. From 2002 to 2012, the Beijing court accepted a total of 7,896 cases of trademark administrative litigation, of which 6,793 have been disposed of.

A hot legal issue in trademark administrative litigation is the admission of new evidence. The parties often submit new evidence in litigation proceedings and ask the court to admit such evidence as valid. Depending on the circumstances of a case, the court has the right to decide at its discretion whether new evidence is admissible, and whether the new evidence is admissible is sometimes directly related to whether the case can win. According to the author’s experience, the court is gradually evolving in its attitude towards whether it can accept new evidence in trademark administrative proceedings. This evolution process can be summarised in three stages.