China expects special courts on intellectual property

New special courts on intellectual property rights (IPR) are expected to be set up in China, targeting to meet the increasing litigations amid the country's boosting innovations.

Zhu Xiaodan, governor of south China's Guangdong Province, said that he hopes the Supreme Court would set up the country's first IPR court in Guangdong, where one fourth of China's IPR disputes happen.

"The most pressing task in Guangdong's industrial transformation is to enhance enterprises' ability to innovate. Legal justice is crucial to the protection and encouragement of innovation," Zhu said.

Zhu made the remarks during a week-long campaign on IPRs held by the Supreme Court in Guangdong on the eve of World Intellectual Property Day on Saturday.

It has been a hot topic in the judicial system, and was put into China's key reform plan after the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The CPC has vowed to strengthen China's facilitation and protection of intellectual property rights, improve the mechanism to encourage innovation, and explore ways of setting up IPR courts.

A four-level court system is applied in the Chinese mainland, consisting of the Supreme Court in Beijing and three tiers of local courts. The country also has special courts dealing with military and maritime cases, both of which date back to decades ago.

The establishment of new IPR courts will be a big move in China's legal system reform, and is welcomed by local governments.

According to statistics released by the supreme court, 100,399 IPR cases were heard in Chinese courts in 2013 alone.

Many of these cases were extremely complicated of foreign entities, cutting-edge technical issues, new business models on the Internet, or world renowned brands, said Jin Kesheng, deputy chief judge of the IPR tribunal of the Supreme Court.

The "complicated" cases have included the long-standing iPad trademark dispute between Apple and Shenzhen-based company Proview, as well as Chinese tech firm Huawei suing InterDigital Communications of the United States over monopolistic practices. Both litigations were heard in Guangdong.

"It's very demanding for judges to hear IPR lawsuits," said Yu Mingyong, deputy chief judge of the Intermediate People's Court in Guangzhou. "They must be familiar with not only the laws and procedures but also science and technology."

Yu believes that a special court will help judges to be better prepared for cases, and it should cover all intellectual property related cases in a certain region, no matter they are civil, criminal or administrative ones.

Such three-in-one trials on IPR cases have been experimented in over 100 local courts in China, according to the Supreme Court.

Some cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Foshan have applied to set up special IPR courts, said Xu Chunjian, deputy chief judge of the Guangdong Provincial Higher People's Court.

"As an important reform, it needs to be discussed at state level," said Xu. "As far as I know, there'll be some progress soon."

He also stressed that setting up special IPR courts will bring China in line with other large economies in protection of intellectual property rights.

"Similar courts were established in Germany and the United States in 1961 and 1982, and in more countries since the mid 1990s," Xu said. "It will help China to better fit into the process of globalization."

China's other developed cities and provinces like Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu are also seeking the establishment of special IPR courts.