On the morning of 28 january 2026, the supreme people's court held a press conference on the national levelIntellectual property rights7th anniversary of the functioning of the appeals mechanism, annual report of the intellectual property tribunal of the supreme people's court (2025), intellectual property tribunal of the supreme people's courtMediationWork and typical cases. The vice-president of the intellectual property court of the supreme people's court, zhu li, vice-president of the intellectual property court of the supreme people's court, and zhang xinbai, senior judge of the intellectual property court of the supreme people's court, attended the launch and responded to questions from journalists, which was chaired by the deputy director of the press bureau of the supreme people's court, ji zhongcheng。
Question: from what has just been published, there has been a marked increase in the number of cases and amounts of compensation dealt with by the intellectual property tribunal of the supreme people's court in recent years, which has passed on to the courtsProtectionIntellectual property rightsJusticeIdeas, and the public at the same time, are there concerns as to whether the higher the compensation, the better, the better. How does the court manage the relationship between strict protection and balance of interests
General secretary xi emphasized: “enhanced intellectual property protection. It's the most important element in improving the system of property rights protection. It's also an increase in china's economyCompetitionThe most powerful incentive." at the same time, the secretary-general pointed out that fair and reasonable protection must be maintained, both in the strict protection of intellectual property rights and against the excessive expansion of individual and business rights, ensuring the public interest and stimulating innovation. I would like to present, in two ways, the spirit in which some of the intellectual property courts of the supreme people's court have learned to follow up on this important directive。
On the one hand, there has been an increase in the number of high compensation cases in recent years, at least for the following reasons: first, strict protection of intellectual property rights is a requirement for the implementation of party policies and legal provisions. The programme for the construction of a power over intellectual property (2021-2035) explicitly provides for the comprehensive establishment and implementation of a system of punitive compensation for violations and for greater compensation for damages. In recent years, both the civil code and the special law on intellectual property have provided for punitive damages for intellectual property violations and increased the amount of statutory compensation. The high level of compensation is a corollary of the active implementation of the policy and strict enforcement of the law. Second, strict protection of intellectual property rights is the result of patterns adapted to such factors as the intangible nature of the objects of intellectual property, the covert nature of the violation, and the continuing vulnerability of the current market to abuse. Thirdly, strict protection of intellectual property rights is also an intuitive reflection of our economy's technological growth and expansion of markets, the growth of enterprises and increased market competition. The country has entered a stage of high-quality development in which intellectual property rights are increasingly becoming a core asset of enterprises and a competitive market, with increasing market value and consequent harm to abuse. In recent years, the tribunal's caseload has increasingly focused on “high-tech” technical areas, with the number and percentage of cases involving strategic and emerging industries rising year by year, with a subsequent sharp increase in the number and amount of high compensation. Of these, high levels of compensation for technical secrets are higher; however, high levels of patent compensation are also common, with at least three awards over $100 million and at least 33 awards over $10 million. In 2025 alone, the tribunal applied punitive damages in 30 cases totalling rmb 1. 13 billion, all of which amounted to approximately rmb 38 million; in 32 cases, a high amount of compensation of over 10 million was determined, totalling rmb 2. 54 billion, all of which amounted to almost rmb 80 million. These high compensation cases correspond to the degree of innovation and value contribution inherent in intellectual property rights, to the level of industrial innovation and market competition in our country and to the level of harm caused by the violation。
On the other hand, intellectual property rights have both property and public policy attributes; they need to be strictly protected while ensuring both public interest and incentives for innovation; and they need to protect existing innovations while leaving room for future innovation. Strict protection and balance of interests are thus two sides of the “one coin” of intellectual property protection. Strict protection is the premise and the foundation, and balance of interests is the goal and the outcome. In general, strengthening intellectual property protection is the main tone and central task of the current intellectual property trials in the people's court, and is the leading and principal aspect. Of course, while strictly protecting intellectual property rights, the people's courts have always paid great attention to the balance of interests. The first is the determination of compensation on the ground. While increasing the level of compensation for high levels of innovation and high levels of tort, appropriate lower awards are made for low levels of innovation and low levels of tort. In contrast to the high compensation cases of more than tens of millions of dollars, the majority of the cases are still under one million dollars. The second is to increase the governance of profit-making cases in mass defence litigation. There has been a significant decline in the number of mass defence actions involving patents, especially inventions, over the past two years. Third is the lack of legal protection against acts of bad faith such as abuse of rights. As mentioned earlier, since the establishment of the tribunal, 13 judicial penalties have been imposed for acts of dishonesty and 17 criminal charges have been referred, which constitute one false and eight malicious proceedings. These are important initiatives to secure a strong balance between protection and interests。
In the future, the tribunal will better address the balance between the interests of rights holders and the public at large, the dynamic balance between protection of rights and promotion of innovation, fair and reasonable protection and prevention of abuse of rights, on the basis of adherence to legal protection, strict protection and efficient protection, and will further stimulate innovation throughout society and the competitive dynamism of the market to help accelerate the development of new quality productivity。
Q: what has the court done in this regard? What next steps are planned
Response: the building of a national unity market is a strategic deployment that has long been the focus of the central party and has been strongly driven. The current “inner volume” competition is a major problem in the construction of a single national market. “inner volume” competition is complex, and from an intellectual property justice perspective, at least three factors warrant particular attention: first, monopolistic behaviour breeds “inner volume”; second, insufficient innovation fosters “inner volume”; and third, unfair competition exacerbates “inner volume”. In recent years, the intellectual property tribunal of the supreme people's court, based on its two main functions of stimulating science, technology and innovation and maintaining fair competition in the market, has done the following five main tasks in regulating “inner volume” competition:
The first is to increase the supply of competition rules and cases and to clarify the boundaries of market behaviour. In 2024, the supreme people's court issued a new judicial interpretation of the antimonopoly civil procedure, which systematically regulates the procedural and substantive aspects of the antimonopoly civil action and lays down the limits of the judicial “red and green light” for competitive conduct. Since 2021, 34 typical cases of unfair competition involving monopolization and technical secrecy have been published, incorporating 25 cases in the people's court's casebook, leading to fair competition by way of interpretation。
The second is to strengthen judicial antimonopoly efforts and to strictly regulate monopolistic behaviour. Since its establishment, the tribunal has found that it constitutes a monopoly in 66 cases, 15 of them in 2025。
Third is to strengthen the protection of innovation and promote higher levels of competition. Actively apply, in accordance with the law, systems of conduct preservation, evidence preservation, punitive damages, etc., to effectively combat patent infringement, etc., and to facilitate the shift of competition from low-quality and low-price competition to high-quality and innovative competition。
Fourthly, the focus is on managing the vicious cycle of competition and strictly regulating unfair competition. Focuss on combating the improper acquisition of technological secrets of others by means of theft, inducement, coercion, organized “drilling” and the capture of the competitive advantage of others, and on breaking the vicious circle of “downward competition” triggered by unfair competition, drawing a level playing field。
Fifth is the strengthening of substantive solutions that will lead to an open and well-organized competition. (c) to step up its efforts to effectively address, in 2025, a number of cases of widespread social interest involving leading companies in the fields of platforms, new energy sources, medicine, etc., in order to guide enterprises to cooperate for development, to innovate for competition, to emerge from the bad competition and to create a good market environment。
As a next step, the tribunal will further explore the judicial path to a more comprehensive approach to “inner volume” competition:
First, the regulation of monopolies and unfair competition should be continuously strengthened. Strictly regulated front-line predatory pricing and other exclusive abuses of market dominance to prevent the “winner-take-all” crowding down of sme margins; focus on regulating typical horizontal monopolistic agreements such as price fixing and market segmentation to restore a virtuous competitive environment; correct abuses of administrative power to exclude, restrict competitive behaviour and break down barriers to local protection and industry; and increase judicial protection of scientific and technological innovation and business secrets in key frontier areas and boost innovation and entrepreneurial dynamism。
Secondly, the role of model cases is further developed. The promotion of guidance case publication and dissemination of more people's court case collections provides clear judicial guidance through regular publication of typical case and adjudicative rules in conjunction with the ipr advocacy week, the china fair competition policy advocacy week and the food security advocacy week。
Thirdly, the integration of administrative law enforcement with judicial processes continues. (c) to receive and adjudicate, in accordance with the law, subsequent civil proceedings for antimonopoly enforcement, while actively transferring to antimonopoly law enforcement agencies, in a timely manner, clues of monopolistic offences found in civil proceedings, leading to an effective enforcement judicial cooperation to regulate “inner volume” competition。
Question: what is the reason for the high rate of judicial mediation in cases before the intellectual property tribunal of the supreme people's court? What are the distinctive practices
As just described, since its inception, the courts have concluded 13,263 civil second instance cases of technical intellectual property rights, 4997 cases of conciliation and withdrawal of complaints through conciliation, with a rate of withdrawal of 37. 7 per cent, which is significantly higher than in civil cases of general intellectual property rights and civil second instance cases nationwide. The main reasons for the preliminary analysis are:
One is the institutional advantage. The courts provide centralized jurisdiction for technical-type intellectual property appeal cases in accordance with the law, combined with the cross-cutting nature of civil torts and administrative ineffectiveness procedures, and the risk of related disputes, thus facilitating multi-case synergies and facilitation。
Second is conceptual guidance. The tribunal has effectively implemented the concept of “compromising justice” by insisting on mediation and conciliation as the preferred option and preferred mode of resolution, with a cooperative win-win approach and systematic thinking, focusing on a package of substantive solutions that promote scientific and technological innovation and the transformation of results。
Thirdly, there are institutional safeguards. (c) actively rely on a wide range of actors, including representative commissioners, government departments, scientific institutions and academic experts, to facilitate the settlement of contentious and related disputes。
Under the above-mentioned institutional safeguards and conceptual guidance, mediation mechanisms and innovations in methods have led to the resolution of disputes, creating some of the special features that have just been introduced: the establishment of working mechanisms such as representational committees to assist in mediation, mediation by the president of major court cases; the use of temporary measures such as preservation of evidence, protection of conduct and “promoting advocacy”; the use of technical investigations, technical identification, etc., to “promoting mediation”; the conduct of circuit trials, on-site surveys to “promoting mediation”; the role of a pilot pilot case guide to “promoting mediation”; the integration of case management “for the purpose of advocacy and reconciliation”; and counselling and promotion on the basis of the characteristics of tenure, torts, contracts, special subject-matter cases。
In the next step, we will further implement the guidelines for judicial mediation of technological intellectual property cases, with the objective of facilitating substantive resolution of disputes, facilitating the transformation of innovation and promoting win-win and win-win approaches, integrating innovative approaches on a continuous basis to resolve disputes arising in the process of technological innovation and its application and contributing to the further integration of technological and industrial innovation。
Question: how does a court in a foreign dispute lead a foreign party to agree that this “eastern experience” is combined
Response: the tribunal has conducted solid foreign-related intellectual property trials. Over the past seven years, it has heard 2,546 cases involving foreign-related persons, representing approximately one tenth of the total number of cases before the tribunal. Of these, mediation and conciliation cases have been on the rise, and almost one tenth of all cases have been withdrawn by the tribunal. The chinese and foreign parties have been able to identify with the mediation efforts of the tribunal and have benefited from our sustained efforts over the past seven years。
One is to focus on equal protection and gain the confidence of the parties. Using the advantages of fair and impartial foreign trials, prompt and efficient, friendly civilization and humane care, our country has continued to promote cooperation, open-ended, predictable and confidence-building in intellectual property-related cases, and has focused on the creation of a preferred forum for international intellectual property dispute resolution. The court's diligence and “like me in litigation” has also left a deep experience of litigation for foreign parties, gaining the trust and respect of transnational innovators, and a general willingness to give serious consideration to the conciliation and settlement proposals put forward by the judges。
The second is to focus on coherence and coordination in guiding the package. The active and leading role of the judges, with full respect for the will of the parties, leads the parties to move beyond a single case dispute, to a global perspective and to seek a holistic and fundamental solution from the point of view of achieving win-win cooperation in a comprehensive substantive manner。
The third is to focus on multifaceted participation and promote efficient resolution. (c) to play a role as a “general-to-general” recourse mechanism, to enhance the application of the delegation of conciliation and to induce parties to jointly entrust mediation to third parties, such as international mediation organizations and arbitration institutions, and to strengthen the link between judicial conciliation and administrative conciliation and professional mediation in an effort to reduce the cost and time of dispute resolution。
Next, we will build on the new era's maple bridge experience, deepen international cooperation in the area of the rule of law in intellectual property rights, better promote the integration and effectiveness of intellectual property rights resource mobilization resources, and spread a variety of channels to combine this “eastern experience” and contribute chinese wisdom to the settlement of international intellectual property disputes。
Question: the consideration of administrative cases, such as patents, which authorize the enforcement of powers over intellectual property rights, has a direct impact on the protection of the interests of creative subjects and the order of competition in the market. Could you describe the trends in such cases since the establishment of the intellectual property tribunal of the supreme people's court and the relevant jurisprudence
Response: the intellectual property tribunal of the supreme people's court, as the recipient of the mechanism for the review of intellectual property cases at the national level, has centralized jurisdiction over cases in which patents, new plant varieties and integrated circuit chart designs authorize a second hearing, which is considered as administrative cases under the code of administrative procedure. Such cases are dealt with properly by the courts in accordance with the law, monitoring and supporting the administration of justice, strengthening the orientation of judicial decisions to science, technology and innovation activities and providing strong service guarantees for the implementation of innovation-driven development strategies and the development of new quality productivity. Over the past seven years, courts have dealt with 6543 administrative cases and concluded 5757, of which more than 99 per cent have been patented. Following a fine-tuning of the scope of cases before the tribunal in 2023, the proportion of authorized cases in the overall caseload increased significantly, from about 25 per cent of all substantive cases before 2023 to nearly 60 per cent by 2025。
One of the main features and underlying dynamics of patent authorization cases before the tribunal over the past seven years is the growing number of cases and the relatively high percentage of invention patents. The average annual increase was 31. 8 per cent, with faster growth in the preceding period, which slowed with the increase in the base figure; the type of patent involved was dominated by inventions and accounted for over 50 per cent. Second, there has been a marked rise in cases involving strategic and emerging industries. The proportion has steadily increased from less than one quarter to about one third. Thirdly, foreign-related cases continue to grow. Nearly 20 per cent of the total, including nearly 30 per cent of patented inventions, and a growing number of civil tort suits, both domestic and foreign. Fourth is that the appeal rate has declined and is still operating at a high level. The overall appeal rate for seven years was 46. 6 per cent, almost the same as before the establishment of the tribunal, but slightly lower than the appeal rate for general administrative cases. Fifth is the relatively stable rate of second instance revision. The overall rate of revision was 6. 6 per cent; the percentage of cases brought against administrative decisions for annulment was also relatively stable, at an average of about 7 per cent per year, almost the same as before the establishment of the tribunal。
An important source of legal protection for innovations is the granting of power in administrative cases of intellectual property rights such as patents, where the courts have always paid attention to “four insistences”: first, adherence to legal protection. “true innovation” is “real protection” through the monitoring of and support for the administration of the relevant administration in accordance with the law, through a review of legality, while respecting the judgement and discretion of the executive on technical facts and professional issues, and through a final hearing of the substantive conditions of the authority delegated to it, establishing by law the scope of protection that matches the contribution of innovation. The second is to maintain coherence and coordination. (c) to consider, in a comprehensive manner, balancing the rights and interests of patent holders with the public interest of society, reconciling technological innovation with industrial development, and ensuring that the patent system has the overall effectiveness of stimulating innovation and promoting its application. The third is to insist on equal treatment. Whether domestic or foreign, state-owned or private, large or small- and medium-sized enterprises, units or individuals are treated equally in the application of vetting standards and procedures, creating a fair and non-discriminatory environment for innovation. Fourth is to maintain integrity and order. The practice of forging or compiling data, patenting other people's commercial secrets, etc., is strongly described as “no” and actively leads to violations of the law, including by patent agents and “self-agents”。
As a next step, the tribunal will accelerate the strategic need for high-level technological self-reliance and leadership in the development of new quality productivity in line with the “155” period, further improve the quality of mandated trials, such as patents, strengthen the orientation of judicial decisions towards science, technology and innovation activities, increase the protection of innovation outcomes and make more active efforts to create an open and innovative environment that is globally competitive。
Question: “fifty-five” planning proposals suggest “enhanced corporate ownership of sti”. Technological secrecy is the core competitiveness of enterprises and is essential to their viability and long-term development in competitive markets. What has the tribunal done to strengthen the protection of technical secrets? What's next
Response: business secrets, in particular technology secrets, as an important component of the intellectual property system, are a key vehicle for the core competitiveness of enterprises and, above all, an important component of national innovation and national security systems. In the seven years since its establishment, the tribunal has always attached great importance to the judicial protection of technical secrets, in which 343 cases were handled. In summary, the following are the main examples:
First, to uphold legal protection and to demonstrate the strict concept of protection. One is to use adequate rules of evidence to combat violations in all their aspects. The methamphetamine case and the new energy car car chassis case were selected as the top 10 cases in 2023 and 2024, respectively, to advance the rule of law process in the new era. The “cranyl” case, which served as a guiding case, fully used the rules of evidence and daily life experience for an overall evaluation, in which it was assumed that the person against whom the complaint had been made had used all the technical secrets. The second is the firm implementation of a punitive compensation system, which provides a strong deterrent to perpetrators. The “new energy car chassis” case, concluded in 2024, was awarded a double punitive compensation of $640 million, while the recently concluded “glass machine” case was awarded a threefold punitive compensation of $382 million。
Second, to insist on rule and maintain a level playing field. The first is innovative methods of adjudicating and strengthening the enforcement of decisions. (c) actively explore concrete ways of assuming responsibility for cessation of breaches of civil liability and the criteria for the payment of delay payments for non-pecuniary obligations, and ensure that decisions are automatically and fully implemented. The second is to clarify responsibility for violations and to combat them throughout the chain. In the centrifugal compressor select software case, the violation was retroactively struck, joint and several responsibility was established for the violation of the employee's unnamed establishment of the company, and a sum of $166 million was awarded。
Thirdly, the balance of interests should be maintained and efforts should be made to promote substantive solutions. The nilon raw materials process case has led to a package of settlement agreements and subsequent cooperation between foreign and middle parties, which, while effectively protecting rights holders, has completely addressed the risks of shutdown and compensation faced by many enterprises. The one-time settlement of the chloroacetic acid case, while all of the cases are being prosecuted, achieves win-win and win-win by entering into multiple technical licences。
As a next step, the tribunal will focus its efforts on strengthening the technical secrecy of science, technology and innovation subjects through a comprehensive review of the judicial experience of technical secrecy cases and the effective strengthening of judicial guidance in national courts; on continuing to deal with major and complex cases of technical secrecy appeals and improving the judicial protection of key core technologies; and on actively contributing to the development of sound rules and mechanisms for the protection of commercial secrets。
