China to Strengthen Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights

On March 30, 2009, China's Supreme Court released the Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Implementation of the National Intellectual Property Strategies (the "Opinions"), effective the same date, which provide a general guideline for enforcing the judicial protection of intellectual property rights. The Opinions aim to strengthen judicial protection of intellectual property rights by improving the IP dispute-settlement mechanism, imposing severe punishment on IP infringement and providing more judicial interpretations regarding specific IP cases, among other things. The Opinions cover the guidelines for various IP cases, including cases concerning patents, trademarks, copyrights, commercial secrets, unfair competition, monopoly, IP contracts and foreign-related IP. The Opinions also stipulate that the Supreme Court will shortly release interpretations regarding judicial protection of well-known trademarks, as well as interpretations concerning civil action procedures for anti-monopoly cases and criteria for adjudication of patent infringement.


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