New Judicial Interpretation by Top Judicial Authorities

A new judicial interpretation on several issues concerning specific application of law in handling criminal cases of infringing IPRs (the new interpretation) jointly published by the Supreme People's court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate came into force on April 5, 2007.

Compared with the judicial interpretation issued by the top judicial authorities in December 2004, one notable change in the new interpretation is the deeply lowering of the crime threshold in copyright infringement cases. According to the new interpretation, where a written work, music work, motion picture, TV program or video, computer software or other works is, without authorization of the copyright holder, reproduced and distributed for commercial purposes and the total amount of illegal reproductions is over 500 copies, the act falls into other serious acts under Article 217 of the criminal law; where the total amount of illegal reproductions is over 2,500 copies, the act falls into other very serious acts under the Article 217. Therefore, the crime threshold in the new interpretation is only half that in the 2004 judicial interpretation.

Under the criminal law, anyone commits the other serious act or the other very serious act of infringement on copyright could respectively face an imprisonment term up to three years or up to seven years.

In addition, the new interpretation also enhanced the fine available in IPR cases. The new interpretation stipulates that the amount of fines for IPR violations would range from one to five times of illegal income, or between 50% and 100% of illegal business turnover.

Moreover, the new interpretation stipulates that the injured party has a right to directly bring the lawsuit in the People's court by itself or by himself if it or he has an evidence to prove the infringement crime of IPR. The people's procuratorates shall prosecute the criminal cases of IPRs in which serious harm is done to public order or to the interest of the State.