Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Several Issues concerning Judicial Procedures for Patent and Other Intellectual Property Cases (the “Decision”) will be implemented from 1 Jan. 2019

IP disputes related to Patent and etc. require more technique knowledge. In order to manage the judicial criteria on IP disputes, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress has approved the Decision on 26th Oct., 2018. Then main contents include:

1.To set a cross-grade second instance system

According to the current “Civil Procedure Law” and “Administrative Procedure Law”, the party who dissatisfies with the judgment or ruling of the first instance shall files an appeal to a higher level court. However, in consideration of the special technique requirements, the “Decision” stipulates that the following cases shall be adjudicated by the Supreme People’s Court.

(1) an appeal upon dissatisfaction with the judgment or ruling of the first instance of an intellectual property civil case that involves more technical issues, such as invention patent, utility model patent, new variety of plants, layout design of integrated circuit, technical secret, computer software, and monopoly.

(2)an appeal upon dissatisfaction with the judgment or ruling of the first instance of an intellectual property administrative case that involves more technical issues, such as patent, new variety of plants, layout design of integrated circuit, technical secret, computer software, and monopoly.

To be noted that the design patent is relevantly simple, so the second instance shall be still heard by the higher level court.

2.The trial supervision procedure shall be cross-graded as well.

According to the “Decision”, in respect of a first-instance judgment, ruling, or mediation decision of the above-mentioned cases that has already taken effect, where a request for retrial or a protest is made according to law and the trial supervision procedure applies, the retrial shall be adjudicated by the Supreme People’s Court. Alternatively, the Supreme People’s Court may direct according to law a lower court to conduct the retrial.

It shall be noted that such trial supervision procedures will also be implemented to those first-instance judgment, ruling, or mediation decision of the above-mentioned cases which has already taken effect before the effective date of this “Decision”.