The Supreme People's Court (“SPC”) of China recently issued the Decision on Amending “Regulations of the Supreme People's Court on Certain Issues Concerning the Intellectual Property Court” (“Regulations”),as well as a notice providing guidance on the implementation of the amended Regulations. The decision was approved on October 16, 2023, and will take effect as of November 1, 2023.

The Decision and notice state that, starting from November 1, 2023, the appellate court for normal civil and administrative appeal cases involving ownership and infringement disputes over utility model patents, trade secrets, computer software will be the court one level higher than the court of first instance. The first-instance court must provide clear guidance on the appellate jurisdiction in the judgment document. For significant and complex cases of the same nature that are adjudicated by the high people's courts in the first instance, the appeals will still be heard by the Intellectual Property Court of the SPC (hereinafter referred as “the SPC IP Court”).

Furthermore, for rulings related to preservation of act made by the court of first instance after November 1, 2023that fall under the aforementioned types of cases(i.e. the cases which the appellate court is the SPC IP Court), it must be clearly stated that if the parties disagree with the ruling, they can apply for a review of the ruling to the original court or the SPC within five days. The execution of the ruling will not be suspended during the review.

Meanwhile, the SPC IP Court maintains its jurisdiction on (1) second-instance civil and administrative appeal cases involving ownership and infringement disputes on invention patents, new plant varieties, integrated circuit layout design, as well as (2) administrative appeal cases involving disputes derived from prosecution and invalidation of patents of all kinds, new plant varieties, integrated circuit layout design.

This amendment represents a major adjustment to the scope of cases accepted by the SPC IP Court since its official establishment on January 1, 2019. Previously, second-instance civil and administrative appeals of cases involving ownership and infringement disputes over utility model patents, trade secrets, and computer software were all centrally adjudicated by the SPC IP Court. After the amendment, only significant and complex cases of this nature adjudicated by the high people's courts in the first instance will undergo second-instance adjudication by the SPC IP Court.

According to official reports, between 2019 and 2022, the SPC IP Court accepted a total of 2,982 cases of infringement of utility model patent rights, 1,743 cases of computer software, and 213 cases of trade secret, of the second-instance substantive civil cases. During the same period, the number of cases involving infringement of invention patent rights was 1,860. It is believed that after this adjustment, the SPC IP Court is expected to further accelerate the speed of adjudicating second-instance cases and will devote more efforts to strengthening the guidance and supervision of lower court adjudications, ensuring uniform judgment standards and continuously improving the quality and efficiency of adjudication.