The Supreme People's Court's 2021 Annual Report on Intellectual Property Protection and Cases

Summary 

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• The selection of the top-10 IP cases of the year by the SPC has been a tradition since 2008, and continues to play an important role in the development of IP-related jurisprudence in China.
• The Vanillin case, concerning trade misappropriation, involved a record-breaking damages award, despite there being no punitive damages element.
• The Driving School case clarified that in order to claim exemption under Article 15 of the PRC Anti-Monopoly Law, a horizontal agreement must be necessary to realize the benefits and at the same time must not severely restrict competition in the relevant market.
• Finally, the Double Trapeze case featured the admission of "new evidence" which came into being, in relation to a dispute where the owner of prior rights did not seek trademark registration as quickly as the squatter.

The Supreme People's Court (SPC) recently published the 2021 edition of its annual top ten IP cases and top 50 typical IP cases report. The publication coincided with National IPR week in April 2022. A tradition started in 2008, this is the 14^th edition of the annual report published by the SPC. The selection of these cases by the country's top court has played an important role in the development of IP-related jurisprudence in China.

Apparently undisturbed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the SPC docketed 7,095 intellectual property cases in 2021, which represents an increase of more than 30% compared with 2020. The number of cases docketed by the SPC has risen sharply in recent years, with an increase of almost ten times from 2016 to 2021. Such a significant increase illustrates the confidence that stakeholders appear to have in choosing litigation as a way to resolve their IP disputes in China.