Supreme People's Court, Annual Report on Intellectual Property Cases (2014) (Abstract)

(Issued by the Supreme People's Court on April 21 2015.)

In 2014, the Supreme People's Court adhered to "administration of justice for the people and impartial justice" as the main themes of its work, actively implemented the state's intellectual property strategy, fully leveraged the guiding role of judicial protection of intellectual property, intensified the reform of the intellectual property judicial regime, continuously enhanced judicial capabilities and judicial credibility and continuously expanded the international influence of the judicial protection of intellectual property, thereby making positive contributions to the development of an innovation-oriented country and a China ruled by law.

The Intellectual Property Division of the Supreme People's Court accepted a total of 481 new intellectual property cases. Dividing the newly accepted cases by trial procedure, there was a total of 11 appeal cases, 51 review cases, 393 cases of applications for retrial, 6 procuratorate-protested cases and 20 cases requesting instructions. Dividing them by the type of subject involved, there was a total of 192 patent cases, 8 new plant variety cases, 148 trademark cases, 56 copyright cases, 3 monopoly cases, 9 trade secret cases, 16 other unfair competition cases, 26 intellectual property contract cases and 23 other cases (mainly involving intellectual property trial management matters). Dividing them by their nature, there was a total of 145 administrative cases, accounting for 30.15% of all newly accepted cases, of which 56 were administrative patent cases and 89 administrative trademark cases, representing a reduction of 12.5% and an increase of 21.92% respectively over 2013; and a total of 336 civil cases, accounting for 69.85% of all newly accepted cases. Additionally, there were 85 cases remaining from 2013, giving a total of 566 cases pending in 2014. A total of 490 intellectual property cases were concluded during the year, of which 10 were appeal cases, 51 were review cases, 402 were cases of applications for retrial, 21 were cases requesting instructions and 6 were procuratorate-protested cases. Of the 402 concluded cases of applications for retrial, 131 were applications for administrative retrial and 271 were applications for civil retrial; in 303 of the cases, a ruling to reject the application for retrial was rendered, in 37 of the cases, a ruling for review was rendered, in 20 of the cases, a ruling ordering or designating retrial was rendered, in 24 of the cases, a ruling withdrawing the suit (including withdrawal of cases through mediation) was rendered, and 18 of the cases were resolved by other means.