Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Intellectual Property Tribunal
(Adopted at the 1756th meeting of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People's Court on December 03, 2018, amended according to the “Decision of the Supreme People's Court to Amend the Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues concerning the Intellectual Property Tribunal” adopted at the 1901st meeting of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People's Court on October 16, 2023, and this amendment has come into force since November 1, 2023)
For the purposes of further unifying the standards for the adjudication of intellectual property cases, equally protecting the lawful rights and interests of various types of market participants in accordance with the law, increasing the judicial protection of intellectual property rights, optimizing the legal environment for scientific and technological innovation, and accelerating the implementation of innovation-driven development strategies, in accordance with the Organic Law of the People's Courts of the People's Republic of China, the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China, the Administrative Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China, the Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on Several Issues concerning Judicial Procedures for Patent and Other Intellectual Property Cases and other legal provisions, and in light of the practical trial work, provisions on the issues concerning the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court are made as follows.
Article 1 The Supreme People's Court shall set up the Intellectual Property Tribunal to mainly try patents and other intellectual property appeal cases with strong technical expertise.
The Intellectual Property Tribunal is a permanent judicial organization dispatched by the Supreme People's Court and is based in Beijing.
The judgments, rulings, mediation documents and decisions made by the Intellectual Property Tribunal are the judgments, rulings, mediation documents and decisions of the Supreme People's Court.
Article 2 The Intellectual Property Tribunal shall try the following appeal cases:
(1) administrative appeal cases involving the grant and confirmation of patents, new plant varieties, or integrated circuit layout designs;
(2) civil and administrative appeal cases involving the ownership of or infringement upon invention patents, new plant varieties, or integrated circuit layout designs;
(3) major or complicated civil and administrative appeal cases involving the ownership of or infringement upon utility model patents, technical secrets, or computer software;
(4) civil and administrative appeals cases involving monopoly.
The Intellectual Property Tribunal shall try other cases as follows:
(1) nationwide major or complicated first-instance civil and administrative cases of the types specified in the preceding paragraph;
(2) cases of applications for retrial, protests, and retrials, which are subject to trial supervision procedures according to the law, against the legally effective judgments, rulings, and mediation documents of first-instance civil and administrative cases as specified in the preceding paragraph;
(3) cases on disputes over jurisdiction of first-instance civil and administrative cases as specified in the preceding paragraph, applications for reconsideration of behavior preservation rulings, applications for reconsideration of fines or detentions, requests for extending the trial period, and similar cases.
(4) other cases that the Supreme People's Court deems should be tried by the Intellectual Property Tribunal.
Article 3 The people's court at a lower level that tries cases referred to in Article 2 of these Provisions shall transfer paper or electronic files to the Intellectual Property Tribunal in a timely manner in accordance with regulations.
Article 4 The Intellectual Property Tribunal may request the parties to disclose relevant information involving ownership, infringement, granting and confirmation of the intellectual property rights involved in the case. The party's refusal to truthfully disclose such information may be considered in determining whether they comply with the principle of good faith and whether it constitutes an abuse of rights.
Article 5 The Intellectual Property Tribunal may go to the field or the place where the people's court of the original trial is located to try cases according to the circumstances of the case.
Article 6 The Intellectual Property Tribunal shall take measures such as preservation, and handle cases in accordance with the relevant provisions of the enforcement procedure.
Article 7 The case docketing information, members of the collegial panel, trial process, and judgment documents, etc. of the cases tried by the Intellectual Property Tribunal shall be disclosed in accordance with the law.
Article 8 The judges meeting of the Intellectual Property Tribunal shall be composed of a chief judge, deputy chief judges and several senior judges to discuss major, difficult and complicated cases, etc.
Article 9 The Intellectual Property Tribunal shall enhance the research on the trial work of relevant cases, summarize the judgment standards and trial rules in a timely manner, and guide the trial work of the people's courts at a lower level.
Article 10 Where a provincial People's Procuratorate files a protest with the people's court at a higher level against the legally effective case judgments, rulings, and mediation documents made by the Intellectual Property Tribunals and the Intermediate People's Courts for first-instance civil and administrative cases of the types as specified in paragraph 1 of Article 2 of these Provisions, the people's court at the higher level shall inform it that the protest shall be submitted by the Supreme People's Procuratorate to the Supreme People's Court according to law and shall be tried by the Intellectual Property Tribunal.
Article 11 These provisions have come into force since January 1, 2019. If the judicial interpretations previously issued by the Supreme People’s Court are inconsistent with these regulations, these provisions shall prevail.
