On 7 September 2026, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) issued the Opinions on Adjudicating Disputes Involving Artificial Intelligence in Accordance with Law (Fa Fa [2026] No. 10). The 24-provision document is the SPC’s first set of adjudication guidance dedicated to AI disputes. In the absence of a standalone AI law in China, the Opinions provide more specific guidance on how existing laws - including the Civil Code, Copyright Law, Patent Law, Anti-Unfair Competition Law and Personal Information Protection Law - should be applied to AI-related disputes.
For overseas companies, rights holders and applicants engaged in AI research and development, product deployment, content generation, open-source software or data-related business in China, the following IP issues are particularly relevant:
• Copyright liability for AI-generated content: Liability may be allocated among developers, service providers and users by reference to factors including the type of AI service, sources of training data, each party’s level of participation, preventive measures taken and profits obtained. A developer relying on a non-infringement defence may be required to provide information on training-data sources, training records, model operation and relevant technical basis.
• AI-assisted inventions: An AI-related invention may qualify for patent protection where it uses technical means to solve a technical problem and achieves a technical effect. A natural person who makes a creative contribution to the substantive features of an AI-assisted invention may be recognised as the inventor. Patent specifications must still satisfy the sufficiency-of-disclosure requirement.
• Open-source software: In assessing liability, courts will consider the type of open-source licence, restrictions on rights, compliance measures and the level of information disclosure. An open-source developer or provider that supplies code modules free of charge and discloses their functions and security risks may, in appropriate circumstances, be exempt from liability for infringement resulting from another party’s use.
• Data rights: Lawfully obtained data in which a party holds relevant rights and interests may be protected. Depending on the circumstances, data or datasets may receive protection under copyright, trade secret law or the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.
• Evidence and litigation: AI-generated content may be used as evidence of infringement, but courts will examine issues such as prompt design, consistency of repeated outputs, similarity to the asserted work, model training and content-filtering mechanisms. A party controlling key electronic evidence that refuses to produce it without legitimate reason may face an adverse inference.
The Opinions signal a more concrete phase in the judicial treatment of AI-related IP disputes in China. Overseas rights holders and businesses should consider reviewing training-data provenance, model-development records, open-source licence compliance, documentation of human inventive contribution and preservation of electronic evidence before launching AI products or building IP portfolios in China.
Source: Supreme People’s Court, 7 September 2026
https://www.court.gov.cn/zixun/xiangqing/511101.html
