Supreme People's Court, Annual Report on Intellectual Property Cases (2013) (Abstract)

(Published by the Supreme People's Court on April 23 2014.)

In 2013, the Supreme People's Court took the promotion and strengthening of innovation as a new force to drive development as core, and took further intensification of the judicial protection of intellectual property as its guide to liberate thinking, reform, innovate, greatly strengthen impartiality in intellectual property adjudication, and continuously enhance the credibility and international influence of intellectual property adjudication so as to provide a solid foundation for the establishment of an innovation oriented country and a powerful state with a socialist culture, and the comprehensive construction of a prosperous society.

The Intellectual Property Division of the Supreme People's Court accepted a total of 594 new intellectual property cases, a 65.46% increase over the number in 2012. Dividing the new cases by trial procedure, there was a total of seven appeal cases, 51 review cases, 488 cases of applications for retrial, two procuratorate-protested cases and 46 cases requesting for instructions. Dividing them by the type of subject involved, there was a total of 186 patent cases, six new plant variety cases, 141 trademark cases, 176 copyright cases, one monopoly case, eight trade secret cases, nine other unfair competition cases, 24 intellectual property contract cases and 43 other cases (mainly involving intellectual property trial management matters). Dividing them by their nature, there was a total of 137 administrative cases, accounting for 23.06% of all newly-accepted cases, of which 64 were administrative patent cases and 73 administrative trademark cases, an increase of 45.45% and 35.19% respectively over 2012; and 457 civil cases, accounting for 76.94% of all newly accepted cases. Additionally, there were 39 cases remaining from previous years, resulting in a total of 633 cases pending in 2013. A total of 548 intellectual property cases of various types were concluded during the year, of which three were appeal cases, 40 were review cases, 458 were cases of applications for retrial, 45 were cases requesting for instructions and two were prosecutor-protested cases. Of the 458 cases of applications for retrial concluded, 104 were applications for administrative retrial and 354 were applications for civil retrial; in 355 of the cases, a ruling to reject the application for retrial was rendered, in 67 of the cases, a ruling for review was rendered, in 15 of the cases, a ruling ordering or designating retrial was rendered, in eight of the cases, a ruling withdrawing the suit (including withdrawal of cases through mediation) was rendered, in three cases, a ruling concluding the case was rendered, and 10 of the cases were resolved by other means.