Patent administrative rulings highlight the advantages of efficiency-Industry News-Shenzhen deep trust patent Agency Co., LTD

News Updates

NEWS CENTER

Related News

There is currently no data available

Home

Patent administrative rulings highlight the advantages of efficiency

Release Time：

2022-04-13

According to the latest data released by the China National Intellectual Property Administration recently, from 2019 to 2021, the number of patent infringement disputes settled by intellectual property systems across the country will increase by 16.3% annually, and the average period of administrative decisions will be one third shorter than the statutory time limit. The efforts to handle patent administrative rulings have continued to increase, and the efficiency of handling cases has continued to improve. This has effectively leveraged the advantages of fast and efficient intellectual property administrative protection and diversified resolution of conflicts and disputes, effectively safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of innovative entities and their enthusiasm for innovation and creation.

"As one of the important ways of patent administrative protection, the administrative adjudication of patent infringement disputes has the characteristics of high efficiency, low cost, and strong professionalism, and plays an important role in ensuring that patent protection is" fast, accurate, and practical "," said the relevant person in charge of the Intellectual Property Protection Department of the China National Intellectual Property Administration. In recent years, the national level has continuously strengthened the top-level design of administrative rulings, and the administrative adjudication system has taken root in intellectual property protection work. The China National Intellectual Property Administration organized and promoted local intellectual property systems to actively carry out the practice of administrative adjudication of patent infringement disputes, and a number of useful experiences that can be used for reference, copied and promoted emerged.

Improve the system and be pragmatic

Building and improving a rapid response mechanism for handling patent infringement disputes, solving the problem of long cycles in patent infringement cases, is an important means to promote the improvement of intellectual property protection quality and efficiency, and effectively optimize the business environment. One prominent advantage of the administrative adjudication system is to quickly and efficiently resolve conflicts and disputes through diversified means.

In order to fully leverage the "fast protection" advantage of administrative adjudication in patent infringement disputes, various regions, based on their own work practices, continuously explore and improve the construction of administrative adjudication systems, focusing on consolidating work foundations, strengthening process control, prioritizing standards and norms, and strengthening collaborative cooperation. For example, Shandong Province, guided by the "Implementation Opinions on Continuously Deepening the Optimization of the Business Environment," implements smooth channels for acceptance, accepts cases in accordance with the law, and establishes a case by case; Tighten all links and strengthen institutional constraints; Proactively investigate and collect evidence; Integrate law enforcement forces by implementing a delegated law enforcement mechanism; Establish a long-term mechanism for business guidance and other measures to comprehensively improve the efficiency of patent administrative adjudication cases.

"The main function of administrative adjudication is to resolve civil disputes closely related to administrative management activities. According to the principle of administrative first handling, administrative adjudication of patent infringement disputes can not only solve illegal and improper practices in the law enforcement process, but also discover loopholes in patent management, identify the crux of the dispute, summarize the problems, prevent minor problems, and achieve better protection for innovation and creation," said Cheng Xizhong, a professor at the Law School of China University of Political Science and Law.

The "pre cutting notification post cutting guidance" system established in Sichuan is just an example. The post arbitration guidance mechanism refers to providing extended arbitration services, targeting the requester to guide them in improving intellectual property protection measures and reducing the risk of infringement; For the requested party, we guide them to enhance their awareness of intellectual property protection, establish a system for intellectual property protection, promote technological improvement and upgrading, and avoid the recurrence of infringement, fully reflecting the effectiveness of the intellectual property management department's full chain protection.

Innovative mechanisms bring practical solutions

Administrative rulings, as an important part of building an efficient rule of law implementation system, play a "diversion valve" role in resolving civil disputes. "How to achieve a positive interaction and organic connection between administrative and judicial dispute resolution models, unify the execution standards of administrative, judicial, arbitration and other procedures, and achieve a coordinated protection efficiency of depth and breadth, is a basic practical problem faced by administrative adjudication of patent infringement disputes," said the Chinese Association.

In this regard, there is an exploration of innovative work mechanisms in various local practices. For example, Shanghai innovatively implements the judicial confirmation system for administrative mediation agreements, which enhances the formal determination and compulsory enforcement of administrative mediation agreements for intellectual property disputes through the judicial confirmation mechanism. Due to the lack of enforcement power of the intellectual property management department on administrative mediation agreements, if one party refuses to perform or fails to fully perform the mediation agreement, the other party can apply to the people's court for enforcement according to this system. This greatly enhances the effectiveness of administrative mediation agreements, extends the depth of intellectual property administrative protection, and strengthens the organic connection between administrative protection and judicial protection.

Beijing took the lead in adopting the trial mode of "first adjudication, second request", that is, if the patent right involved is declared invalid by the China National Intellectual Property Administration, the petitioner of the administrative adjudication case of patent infringement disputes can be informed to withdraw the case. If the petitioner insists on not withdrawing the case, the request can be rejected first, but it can be clearly stated in the adjudication that if the patent right remains valid after judicial review, the petitioner has the right to request another adjudication. This trial mode strengthens the connection between administrative adjudication of patent infringement and patent confirmation procedures, which can not only improve the efficiency of administrative adjudication, but also reflect the consistency of administrative protection and judicial protection standards, and has certain guiding significance.

Strengthening support to achieve practical results

"Professional personnel handling professional matters" is the endogenous advantage of administrative adjudication in patent infringement disputes. Most patent infringement disputes involve strong professionalism and technical expertise, involving a large number of legal issues as well as technical factual issues that need to be determined. By leveraging the professional advantages of patent administrative agencies, various regions have continuously strengthened their support and strengthened law enforcement guidance through the implementation of a technical investigation officer system, demonstrating their professionalism in administrative law enforcement activities at different levels.

For example, the Intellectual Property Office of Guangdong Province and the Patent Examination Cooperation Center of the Patent Office of the China National Intellectual Property Administration signed a cooperation agreement on jointly building a technical support mechanism for patent infringement determination, making full use of the technical resources and professional advantages of patent examiners to provide advisory services and technical support for the province's handling of patent dispute cases. The bureau is promoting the establishment of an Intellectual Property Dispute Mediation Center and an Intellectual Property Rights Protection Assistance Center by the Guangdong Patent Agency Association to provide auxiliary services for administrative rulings. During the on-site investigation and trial of the case, the patent administrative adjudication department invites patent examiners and others as technical investigation experts to issue patent infringement judgment opinions and assist in handling relevant technical issues.

In addition, Jiangsu, Hubei, Zhejiang and other regions actively use digital means to build online administrative adjudication case handling systems and strengthen the informatization construction of administrative adjudication work systems. For example, the Intellectual Property Office of Hubei Province has organized and developed the unified "Hubei Patent Infringement Dispute Administrative Adjudication System" in the province. The system realizes "node" standardization and management of case handling processes, and has the functions of automatic introduction of party information, unified management of case handling processes, automatic generation of case documents, automatic verification of important information, online handling of cases throughout the whole process, traceability of trace control of case handling behavior throughout the whole process, seamless connection with the existing case analysis and submission system of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, data rights protection, big data research and judgment, and so on. It uses sophisticated "hard equipment" to ensure that the "soft service" of patent administrative protection goes into the minds of innovation subjects. (Reporter Li Yangfang)