The push for an
innovation-based economy and growing public awareness has resulted in a soaring
number of lawsuits involving intellectual property rights (IPR), the top court
has said.
Last year saw 66,000 IPR cases go to litigation, up 37.7 per cent over
2010, Chief Justice Wang Shengjun said on Sunday while presenting a work report
on the top court to the national legislature.
The litigation jump is bigger than those for lawsuits in other
categories.
The number of criminal cases last year rose 7.7 per cent, to about
840,000. And the number of administrative cases was up by 5.1 per cent to
136,000 last year, according to the work report.
"With rapid economic and social development in China, copyright
lawsuits, involving complicated technical and legal problems, are soaring"
the top court said in a statement issued after Wang made the report.
"Courts across the country are faced with the arduous task of
protecting technical progress and innovation," the statement said.
A majority of last year's 66,000 concluded cases were related to
disputes concerning ownership and infringement or contracts, according to a
document from the top court's intellectual property tribunal.
The Guangdong Provincial High People's Court is still handling a
high-profile trademark dispute between a Chinese company and Apple.
Proview Technology Shenzhen Co Ltd claims it owns the rights to the
iPad trademark on the Chinese mainland. Apple refutes this.
The reason behind soaring IPR lawsuits is growing public awareness and
China's vigorous push for science and cultural industries, legislators said.
"Because there were fewer legal disputes in the past that did not
mean that IPR infringement did not exist," Zhu Jianmin, president of
Liaoning Oxiranchem Inc, and a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC),
said.
"It's only because people were not fully aware of IPR importance
or they didn't have laws to protect themselves then. The rise in IPR disputes
will enhance the building of national brands and boost fair competition.
Otherwise, a brand that takes a few years to build will soon attract a lot of
copycats," he said.
Song Yushui, deputy president of Beijing's Haidian district court and
also an NPC deputy, said that usually the sector with the most economic
activity has the most demand for legislation.
"The rise of IPR lawsuits means that the knowledge-based economy
is developing fast in China and has an increasing demand for legislation.
Solving these IPR disputes will provide space for the knowledge economy to
develop in a healthy, orderly way," she said.
However, the rise means that judges are facing an increasing number of
challenges.
"IPR cases are different from traditional civil cases. They can be
highly technical, and require a thorough understanding of relevant laws and
regulations," the document from the intellectual property tribunal said.
As China is vigorously promoting the development of culture, courts
across the country will pay special attention this year to IPR cases in the
sector, including industrial design, Web productions, folk literature and arts.
The courts will also take into account the intangible cultural heritage to
promote the healthy development of the sector, the document said.
Judicial reform urged
The top judge also vowed on Sunday to push reform to further realize
judicial justice.
Some courts could do more to boost transparency of their affairs and
promote the democratic judicial system, he said.
On top of this, some judges have not been as efficient in handling
cases as they should have been, and there have been delays in proceedings and
hearings, Wang said.
A small number of judges were even found guilty of taking bribes and
perverting the course of justice, he added.
This year the Supreme People's Court will work to reform court
procedures, speed up proceedings in civil cases involving small sums of money
and improve the rules allowing citizens to observe trials, he said.
Wang urged greater efforts in allowing supervision by the general
public, including soliciting public opinion, paying more attention to media reports
and netizens and promptly responding to issues of social concern.
Zhu Zhe and Zhang Yan
China Daily
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