China will establish Intellectual property right courts in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the jurisdiction scope has been clarified

Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Establishing Intellectual Property Right Courts in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou (“Decision”) has been adopted at the 10th session of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People’s Congress on August 31, 2014, Intellectual property right courts (“IPR courts”) will be established in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

The level of IPR courts is equivalent to the intermediate court. Within 3 years after IPR courts are established, cross-region jurisdiction may be exercised over the provinces in which the parties are located. The IPR courts shall hear the cases of appeal against civil and administrative judgments and rulings on intellectual property rights such as copyrights and trademark rights rendered by first-instance people’s courts in the cities where the IPR courts are located. The high courts where the IPR courts are located, shall hear the cases of appeal against the first-instance decisions or adjudications of a IPR court.

Subsequently, “Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on the Jurisdiction of Cases of Intellectual Property Right Courts of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou” (“Provision”) was released on Oct. 31. The main contents of the Provision are as follows:

IPR courts have jurisdiction as courts of first instance over the following cases within their municipal jurisdictions:

Civil and administrative cases about patents, new varieties of plants, layout design of integrated circuits, know-how and computer software;

Administrative cases about legal proceedings for administrative actions involving copyrights, trademarks, unfair competition and so on of departments under the State Council or local people’s governments at or above county level; and

Civil cases involving the identification of well-known trademarks.

Some administrative cases of first instance shall be under the jurisdiction of Beijing Intellectual Property Court, mainly includes two categories:

Any case about objection to any administrative action of a department under the State Council relating to patents, new varieties of plants and layout design of integrated circuits, involving authorization and affirmation of intellectual property rights;

Any case about objection to the decision made by a department under the State Council on a compulsory license relating to patents, new varieties of plants and layout design of integrated circuits and to the ruling made by such department on royalties or remunerations pertaining to such compulsory license.