Edited and translated by Ms. Ming Liu, Mr. Xu Li and Mr. Hui Wang of Chofn IP
On June 10th, 2020, the Supreme People's Court publicly requested for opinions on “Interpretations of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in the Trial of Civil Cases Involving Trade Secret Infringement Disputes (Consultation Draft)”, "Reply to the Application of Laws Concerning Internet Intellectual Property Infringement Disputes (Consultation Draft )", and "Guiding Opinions on the Trial of Intellectual Property Disputes Related to E-Commerce Platforms (Consultation Draft)". The deadline is July 27th, 2020, and the revised opinions can be sent to the mailbox spcip2020@163.com. “征求意见回复”(it means in English "Reply to the Request for Opinions") should be indicated in the subject of the email).
"Interpretations of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in the Trial of Civil Cases Involving Trade Secret Infringement Disputes (Consultation Draft)" includes 33 articles that involve the jurisdiction of the court, judicial procedures, the distribution of burden of proof, and the definition of trade secrets (comprising "not known to the public", "Commercial value", "technical information", "business information", and "confidential measures"), the subject of infringement, and the determination of infringing behaviors (comprising "confidentiality obligations", "disclosure", "acquisition by other improper means", “use”, etc. and the meaning of “substantially the same”), and tort liability, etc. The specification is specific and comprehensive, and basically covers the procedures and substantive issues involved in the civil trial for trade secrets.
"Reply to the Application of Laws Concerning Internet Intellectual Property Infringement Disputes (Consultation Draft)" includes 6 articles that include the application for preservation, the situation in which the platform is liable for compensation, error notification, non-infringement declaration, compensation liability of malicious declaration, and application of the reply. Among them, error notification and non-infringement declaration have been stipulated in Article 1195, paragraph 3 and Article 1196 in part of "Infringement Liability" of the "Civil Code" and the “Electronic Commerce Law”.
"Guiding Opinions on the Trial of Intellectual Property Disputes Related to E-Commerce Platforms (Consultation Draft)" includes 16 articles that cover the purpose of case trial, the identification of e-commerce platform operators or operators from the platform, the adoption of necessary measures, and enumeration of behaviors of unfair competition and monopolies, specific measures for the platform to establish notifications and declarations, specific contents of notifications, determination of “malicious” notifications, specific contents of non-infringement declarations, determination of malicious declarations, preservation measures, tort liability, determination of rationality of necessary measures and determination that one "should know" infringements, which have detailed the relevant provisions of the “Electronic Commerce Law”.
