On January 6, 2025, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) released the “Opinions of the Supreme People’s Court on Serving Technological Innovation with High-quality Trial Services” (关于以高质量审判服务保障科技创新的意见). While many of the goals listed are very positive to hear, it seems the SPC is frustrated that its basic goals for improving IP protection haven’t been accomplished over the past few years and is now reemphasizing them. Some highlights from the Opinions follow.

• Properly hear administrative cases on patent authorization and confirmation of rights in accordance with the law, supervise and support the patent administration departments to administer in accordance with the law, promote patent protection, and encourage high-quality inventions and creations.
• Strictly grasp the judicial review standards for the authorization and confirmation of design patents, comprehensively consider the design space of the design and the design characteristics of products in the new technology field based on the knowledge level and cognitive ability of general consumers, and promote the improvement of the quality of design authorization.
• Reasonably distribute the burden of proof in trade secret cases. When the right holder provides preliminary evidence to prove that confidentiality measures have been taken and reasonably indicates that the claimed trade secrets have been infringed, the suspected infringer shall submit evidence to prove that the trade secret claimed by the right holder is not established.
• Handle disputes caused by the “job hopping” of scientific and technological personnel in accordance with the law, properly handle the relationship between the protection of trade secrets and the reasonable flow of scientific and technological personnel, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of scientific and technological personnel in employment and entrepreneurship while protecting trade secrets in accordance with the law.
• Give full play to the effectiveness of the system of behavior preservation, property preservation, and evidence preservation. If the situation is urgent and the applicant provides sufficient guarantees, preservation measures can be taken directly without notifying the respondent in advance in accordance with the law. Give full play to the role of preliminary judgments to avoid continued damage to legitimate rights and interests during the litigation process.
• Increase the compensation for intellectual property infringement in accordance with the law, reasonably apply the rules of evidence and economic analysis methods, determine, compensate and recover the market damage caused by infringement, and ensure that the right holders receive full compensation.
• Strictly review and prudently apply statutory compensation. If it is possible to determine or determine the damage caused by infringement, the profit caused by infringement, or calculate the compensation with reference to the license fee, it is not appropriate to simply apply statutory compensation.
• Increase the application of punitive damages and support the punitive damages request of the right holder in accordance with the law. When the actual loss suffered by the right holder due to infringement or the profit obtained by the infringer due to infringement is difficult to accurately calculate, and there is no license fee to refer to, the punitive damages base can be reasonably calculated based on the evidence in the case, and the compensation multiple can be determined by comprehensively considering the subjective malice of the accused infringer, the means of infringement, the scale of the infringement, the consequences, etc., to give full play to the deterrent effect of punitive damages.
• Regulate illegal behaviors that hinder innovation, such as false litigation, malicious litigation, and abuse of litigation rights, according to the law, and transfer relevant clues of suspected illegal crimes to the competent authorities in accordance with the law, strictly prevent the interference of litigation with the normal development of competitors, and avoid litigation as a means of obtaining improper benefits…In intellectual property infringement litigation, if the right holder obviously abuses his rights and hinders technological innovation, support the defendant’s request for compensation for reasonable expenses on the grounds that the plaintiff abuses his rights.
• Maintain scientific research integrity in accordance with the law, severely punish scientific research fraud such as fabricating and forging scientific research results, buying and selling, writing and submitting papers or project application and acceptance materials, buying and selling, forging, and tampering with experimental data, severely crack down on scientific research intermediaries buying and selling data and paper mill chains, crack down on abnormal patent applications such as fabricating and fabricating patents, and punish fraud and money-making in the activities of testing, development, application, and promotion of scientific and technological achievements, as well as malicious collusion in signing false scientific research contracts.
• If a patent agency or patent agent uses another person’s name to request the invalidation of a patent right, or knowingly acts as an agent for a fictitious or fabricated invention, the relevant clues of suspected illegality shall be transferred to the competent authority for handling.
• Crimes of corruption and bribery in the field of science and technology shall be punished according to law, and the punishment of corruption and bribery in the evaluation of national key projects, major science and technology projects, key core areas, and science and technology awards shall be increased. Crimes of dereliction of duty such as abuse of power, dereliction of duty, and favoritism and fraud by administrative personnel in scientific and technological activities shall be punished according to law.
• Equally protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese and foreign parties in accordance with the law, ensure equal treatment of various market entities in accordance with the law, support the reform of free trade pilot zones, timely summarize the successful experience of the pilot zones and promote them on a larger scale, and promote deepening reform and high-level opening up.

The full text of the Opinions is available here from Chinese social media as the SPC’s website remains geoblocked.