April 20, 2018 eastday.com (Source: website of Shanghai High People’s Court) On April 20, 2018, Shanghai Intellectual Property Court and China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone Administration held a seminar to release the White Paper on the Trials of Intellectual Property Cases Involving Free Trade Zone and to discuss the judicial protection of intellectual property rights. Wang Qiuliang, President of Shanghai Intellectual Property Court, Zhang Bin, Vice President of Shanghai High People’s Court, Wang Jing, Deputy Director of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone Administration, Li Shulan, Vice President of Shanghai Intellectual Property Court, and representatives of enterprises in the FTZ, reporters of Shanghai offices of central news entities and local media, totaling more than 40 people, attended the seminar. At the seminar, Shanghai Intellectual Property Court released the White Paper of Shanghai Intellectual Property Court on the Trials of Intellectual Property Cases Involving Free Trade Zone (2015-2017) (hereinafter referred to as the “White Paper”). It showed that a total of 645 FTZ-related intellectual property cases were accepted from 2015 to 2017, with 594 concluded. Seen from the types of cases, most cases involved disputes over copyright infringement, accounting for 43.26% of all cases. Cases involving disputes over trademark infringement and unfair competition accounted for 23.41%, disputes over computer software accounted for 13.18% and patent disputes accounted for 65.12%. It’s also revealed that FTZ-related intellectual property cases presented four characteristics. First, new characteristic has emerged in export-oriented economy cases. The integrated development of domestic and foreign trade realized by FTZ enterprises brought trademark infringement cases involving parallel import. With the development of cross-border e-commerce service industry, the judicial protection of intellectual property rights related to e-commerce platform is becoming increasingly prominent. Second, cases involving new unfair competition practices on the Internet increased. For example, re-creation of network “fan works,” live broadcast of e-sports events, blocking of pre-video ads by software, use of information collected by other people, and disturbing other’s operation by virtue of software...all these competition practices have complex and enormous influence on the market order, and it’s necessary to evaluate and judge their legitimacy reasonably. Third, there are many cases involving cultural and creative industry, mainly related to games, animation, video and audio, etc. and aiming to protect audiobooks, the whole picture of online games, live broadcasting of e-sports, etc. Among them, the subject matter in some online game cases had a high value. For example, the subject matter was valued RMB 1 billion in the case of dispute over copyright license contract between Hongwu Singapore Private Limited v. HQ Link Pte Ltd. and Qifei International Development Co., Ltd., et al. Fourth, the cases involved a number of well-known enterprises, including Taobao, Tencent, Bridgestone Corporation, Chateau Lafite Rothschild, SAP, etc. Cases where Baidu used Dianping users’ comments frequently without permission, Shanghai Yilang International Trading Co., Ltd. committed trademark infringement by using the registered trademark “FENDI” on its shop signs, etc. have aroused wide concern in the industry. According to the briefing, since its establishment on December 28, 2014, Shanghai Intellectual Property Court has always resolutely carried out the decisions and deployments of the CPC Central Committee and CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee to give full play to the dominant role of judicature in IPR protection and strive to provide powerful judicial services and guarantee for building a law-based business environment in the free trade zone. The White Paper showed that Shanghai Intellectual Property Court has responded to the specialization demand of IPR protection in FTZ by building special trial mechanisms, improving the “four-in-one” technical fact-finding mechanism, and perfecting the diversified dispute resolution mechanism that conforms to the characteristics of FTZ; responded to the internationalization demand of business environment in FZT by optimizing the judicial philosophy, insisting on equal protection of the legitimate rights and interests of both Chinese and foreign parties, accurately grasping the characteristics of export-oriented economy in FTZ, and striving to promote the international influence of judicial protection; responded to the legalization demand of business environment in FTZ by clarifying the rules of judicial adjudication, actively applying temporary measures, increasing the compensations, severely punishing willful infringement and strengthening the protection; and responded to the facilitation demand of business environment in FTZ by actively satisfying the FTZ judicial needs, promoting the “Internet+” trial mode, exploring the service on entrustment, and raising the service awareness. The White Paper also put forward some suggestions on strengthening the IPR protection in FTZ from such aspects as intensifying IPR legal publicity and education, enhancing the awareness of IPR protection and risk prevention of enterprises, and perfecting the public service system for IPR, etc. At the seminar, more than 10 representatives from CHATEAU LAFITE ROTHSCHILD, Shanghai Zhuangyou Information Technology Co., Ltd., Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Shanghai) Corporation and Yakult (China) Investment Co., Ltd. talked about the confusions and problems encountered during their IPR management, protection and litigations, which provide opinions from the forefront to the Courtto further strengthen the IPR protection and solve the difficulties, pains and obstacles in IPR creation, protection, and application during enterprise innovation and entrepreneurship. At the seminar, Shanghai Intellectual Property Court also presented three collections of typical intellectual property cases to the enterprise representatives, which aim to, through case study, give full play to the guiding, regulation, prevention and educational role of judicial adjudications, advocate innovative culture, and create a good atmosphere of respecting and protecting IPR throughout the society. Wang Qiuliang, President of Shanghai Intellectual Property Court, said that serving and safeguarding FTZ construction is an important part of the court work to serve and safeguard the national strategies and overall work of Shanghai. Shanghai Intellectual Property Court will continue to strengthen innovation, improve the mechanisms, better play the role of centralized jurisdiction of IPR cases in unifying the application of law, establishing the rules of adjudication and guiding the social value, etc.to improve the level of IPR judicial protection and to respond to the needs of reform and development of FTZ. Zhang Bin, Vice President of Shanghai High People’s Court, informed the trials of FTZ-related intellectual property cases by all courts in Shanghai. Attachment: Trial Situation of FTZ-related Intellectual Property Cases of Shanghai Intellectual Property Court (2015-2017).pdf
