China to Extend System of Special IPR Courts
On March 25, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) issued the “Third Five-Year Reform Outline of People’s Court (2009-2013)”, which proposes that municipalities and medium-sized cities with large amount of IPR cases shall explore the unified setting of comprehensive IPR tribunals.
In the section of “optimizing the jurisdiction configuration of People’s Court”, the Outline put forward that people’s court should reform and improve the civil and administrative justice systems and set up a sound trial system and working mechanism in line with the characteristics of IPR cases.
Municipalities and medium-sized cities, where IPR cases rise in large amount, shall explore a unified mode for setting up a comprehensive courtroom for intellectual property cases.
The courts should also promote the amendment of administrative procedure law and improve the trial and jurisdiction system of administrative proceedings; simplify the civil and administrative proceedings and establish the rules of summary procedure; set up a new and troubleshooting coordination mechanism for the trial of group and sensitive civil cases and ensure the unified standards of case trial.
Current IPR courts, which are special departments set up at the Intermediate Court level, have been quite successful. Hard to argue against a program that allows plaintiffs to plead their cases in front of well-trained judges with special expertise.
If a network of IPR tribunals can be constructed nationally, whereby judges can share information and standards can be established, this could be really significant.





