Opinion: IP Report shows Supreme Court's changing attitude

Every year, intellectual property rights owners and legal professionals eagerly await the release of the Supreme People's Court, Annual Report on Intellectual Property Cases (Abstract) (最高人民法院知识产权案件年度报告 (摘要)). While none of the cases are binding legal precedents, the lower courts are reluctant to go against the rules set out in the Report.

This year, the Court publicised 34 cases in its case report, which is roughly 10% of the total number of IP cases it adjudicated in 2012. In its summary, the Court noted the following trends exhibited in the IP cases that came before the Court: (a) patent cases involved a significant number of issues related to claim construction; (b) most of the disputes in patent validity cases relate to determining inventiveness; (c) in most of the trademark prosecution cases the key issues relate to the conflicts of rights; and (d) new business models and the use of internet technologies often appear in unfair competition cases.