The number of intellectual property disputes related to invention patent infringement increased by 30.9% annually-Industry News-Shenzhen deep trust patent Agency Co., LTD

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The number of intellectual property disputes related to invention patent infringement increased by 30.9% annually

Release Time：

2024-02-22

On February 22, The State Council Information Office held a press conference at which relevant officials of the Supreme People's Court introduced the operation of the appellate hearing mechanism for intellectual property cases at the national level.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court (hereinafter referred to as the Tribunal). Since its establishment on January 1, 2019, as of December 31, 2023, the tribunal has accepted 18,924 cases and concluded 15,710 cases, and the trial quality and efficiency are significantly better than the trial mechanism before the reform.

Some key data of the press conference are summarized as follows:

In the past five years, the court's judgment revision rate of civil entity cases was 19.6 percent, and the adjustment rate was 37.0 percent, higher than before the reform. The revision rate of administrative entity cases was 7.1%, basically the same as before the reform; The remanding rates of civil and administrative entity cases were 1.2% and 0.15%, respectively, much lower than before the reform; The average trial period for substantive cases is 182 days, which is shorter than before the reform, and the remanding rate of court civil cases has dropped significantly from 3.4% in 2020 to 0.3% in 2023.

Over the past five years, the average annual growth rate of technology intellectual property and monopoly cases handled by courts has been 27 percent, of which the average annual growth rate of invention patent infringement cases is 30.9 percent. The number of cases filed by litigants and the amount of compensation awarded by the court exceeds 100 million yuan is increasing.

Over the past five years, more than 70 percent of the cases accepted by the courts came from six provinces, the largest being Beijing, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong and Shanghai, which accounted for 70 percent of the total.

Over the past five years, the court has accepted a total of 481 cases involving disputes over new varieties of plants, and concluded 364 cases, covering major crops and cash crops. More than 80% of the cases have been won by variety owners, and the amount of compensation is getting higher and higher.

Over the past five years, the average hearing period for appeals of jurisdictional objections has not exceeded 30 days; Court online trial 9565 cases; The full implementation of electronic delivery, the success rate reached 96.1%, the average time limit of electronic delivery was shortened to 0.69 days, greatly improving the delivery efficiency.

The number of first-instance cases of liability disputes arising from ill-faith intellectual property litigation accepted by courts across the country increased from 74 in 2022 to 152 in 2023, an increase of 105.41 percent.

Strategic emerging industry cases accounted for about a quarter of court cases in 2021, and increased to nearly a third in 2023. New disputes involving big data, artificial intelligence, gene technology and other new fields and new forms of business continue to emerge, bringing more new challenges to the judicial protection rules and systems, but also put forward new demands.

By the end of 2023, the courts had accepted 1,678 cases involving foreign parties, and concluded 1,198 cases. Cases involving foreign parties account for nearly one-tenth of all court cases, and foreign-related cases account for nearly one-third of the total number of patent authorization and confirmation cases, and some cases are interwoven between domestic and foreign litigation.

The proportion of foreign-related cases is relatively large, and the international nature of litigation is prominent

As a strategic resource for national development and a core element of international competitiveness, intellectual property is playing an increasingly prominent role. From the data of foreign-related cases heard by the court, by the end of last year, the court accepted a total of 1,678 cases of foreign-related parties and concluded 1,198 cases. These cases have the following characteristics:

First, foreign-related cases accounted for nearly one tenth of the court cases, highlighting the strong international nature of intellectual property litigation, which is also the universal characteristics of intellectual property.

Second, among the administrative cases of patent authorization and confirmation accepted by the court, foreign-related cases accounted for one-third of the proportion. This shows that the Chinese market is very attractive to foreign innovation entities. To put it simply, foreign innovation subjects and foreign parties are very willing to come to China to apply for patents and obtain patents.

Third, more and more foreign enterprises choose to settle intellectual property disputes in Chinese courts. This shows that China is increasingly becoming one of the preferred locations for international intellectual property litigation.

Fourth, in some foreign-related intellectual property cases, there are often related litigation or even parallel litigation in other countries, which reflects the important significance of international intellectual property governance. In recent years, in cases such as standard essential patents, international parallel litigation is particularly obvious and prominent, and a party may file relevant litigation in China, the UK and Germany at the same time, so it is very important to solve such parallel litigation to solve foreign-related intellectual property cases.

On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the Tribunal, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) sent a congratulatory letter, speaking highly of China's achievements in IPR judicial protection. In 2024, according to the work plan of the Tribunal, a judicial seminar on major IP countries will be held in Hangzhou in cooperation with the World Intellectual Property Organization, and judicial seminars and cooperation on IP will also be held with the United States and the European Union.

Disposition of malicious litigation in the field of intellectual property

Bad faith lawsuits in the intellectual property field are generally filed for two reasons:

One is to crack down on competitors;

The second is to obtain compensation benefits that exceed the value of the intellectual property itself.

Specifically in the exercise of patent rights, malicious litigation is manifested in the following aspects:

One is to bring a patent infringement lawsuit knowing that the patent right no longer exists, for example, the patent right has been terminated because of unpaid annual fees.

The second is to maliciously apply for patents for technical solutions that have been previously produced and sold by others and publicly sold products in the market, and then file patent infringement lawsuits against other market operators.

Third, in the case that there is already a prior effective judgment confirming that it does not constitute an infringement of the patent, the same patent is filed again for the same alleged infringement, or the dispute between the two parties has been substantially resolved, but the lawsuit is filed again.

Malicious litigation in the field of intellectual property rights is a more serious act of dishonesty, which has the following adverse effects:

First, for the other party, it will affect the normal listing and issuance financing of the enterprise stock, which may lead to the other party's products can not be listed or removed from the shelf, slow sales, or cause the other party to be forced to participate in litigation and pay relevant reasonable expenses and other direct losses. On the other hand, it may also lead to the other party's goodwill, development opportunities, market leading position and other indirect losses.

Second, it may lead to imitation, seriously damage the market order of fair competition, but also corrupt the social atmosphere.

The third is to occupy the already very tight judicial resources.

In response to relevant issues, as early as 2011, when the Supreme People's Court amended the Provisions on Causes of Civil Cases, it added a new type of cause of action - "Disputes over liability for damage arising from malicious litigation of intellectual property rights", providing a special litigation claim channel for defendants who have suffered losses due to malicious litigation. In June 2021, the Supreme People's Court issued the "Reply on the issue of the Defendant's Request for Compensation for Reasonable Expenses in Intellectual Property Infringement Litigation on the grounds of the Plaintiff's abuse of Rights", which further regulated the malicious litigation in the field of intellectual property through the issuance of the judicial interpretation. In 2023, the court imposed adverse legal consequences on malicious litigation or abuse of rights in three cases. For example, in the malicious litigation case of the "target flowmeter" utility model patent, the court for the first time decided that it constituted a malicious litigation and awarded damages, highlighting the judicial guidance that advocates the parties to follow the principle of good faith and not abuse their rights.

Intellectual property trial system and mechanism

It mainly includes deepening the reform of the appellate hearing mechanism of intellectual property cases at the national level, further optimizing the layout and function allocation of local specialized intellectual property tribunals, accelerating the formulation of the special procedure law on intellectual property litigation, and further vigorously promoting the normalization, specialization, professionalism and internationalization of intellectual property trial teams.

At present, the court is speeding up the drafting of the judicial interpretation of anti-monopoly civil litigation, which is the largest judicial interpretation since the establishment of the court, with about 50 articles, covering the procedural issues of anti-monopoly civil litigation, how to define the relevant market, how to identify the monopoly agreement, how to identify the abuse of market dominant position, and how to bear the relevant civil liability. It involves all aspects of the procedure and entity of anti-monopoly civil litigation.

In terms of guiding cases, since the establishment of this system, so far, the Supreme People's Court has issued a total of 224 guiding cases, including 39 guiding cases in the field of intellectual property rights, including nine cases in the court.

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