Judicial protection of IP relating to ‘internet plus’

Digital Creativity: Culture Reimagined is the theme of this year’s World Intellectual Property Day. New technologies and new business landscapes such as the internet, big data, cloud computing, etc., are profoundly changing modes of production and living, while also throwing up new problems in intellectual property (IP) protection.

According to the Supreme People’s Court’s (SPC) annual report on IP cases (2015), patent, trademark and copyright infringements and unfair competition cases relating to online applications are increasing, and e-commerce platform service providers, network technology companies, etc., have become entities involved in IP disputes at a high frequency.

Recently, the SPC issued the 10 major IP cases and 50 typical IP cases of Chinese courts in 2015, and such regions as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Zhejiang also issued 10 major typical IP cases for the same year, many of them relating to the internet. The Beijing Municipal Higher People’s Court also recently issued the Guidelines for Trying Intellectual Property Cases Involving Networks.

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