Supreme People's Court announced 10 guiding cases in the IP field (Mar-2017)
The Supreme People's Court held a press conference on March 9, 2017 to report the 16th set of guiding cases rolled out by the Supreme People's Court, including a total of 10 guiding cases in the IP field with 9 civil cases and 1 criminal case.
According to the introduction, the 16th civil guiding cases mainly relate to cases of infringing copyrights, trademarks, patents, and new plant varieties; cases of restrained trade in relation to the Antimonopoly Act; and cases of abuse of market dominant position. Criminal guiding cases relate to offenses of trademark counterfeit. The cases rolled out this time are highly specialized and involve various types in new fields, including not only several large cases in the traditional IP field but also difficult, complicated cases of new types such as prohibition of monopolization and prevention of unfair competition in the Internet field. Further, it is a useful attempt to roll out the guiding cases at this time by concentrating on specific fields of specialized examination in the form of themes for the first time since the start of promulgation of guiding cases by the Supreme People's Court.
Promulgation of the guiding cases will help in specifying court rulings and standardizing judicial decisions.
(China.com.cn, revised version)