According to the notice on adjusting the jurisdiction of the people's courts at various levels regarding IPR civil cases of first instance, since February 1, 2010, all the courts will execute the adjusted standard of grade jurisdiction about IPR civil cases.
The Notice unified the standard of IPR civil cases of first instance under jurisdiction of high people’s courts, that is, high people’s courts shall have jurisdiction as courts of first instance over IPR civil cases with dispute amount over 2 billion yuan, IPR civil cases with dispute amount over 100 million yuan but the domicile of party concerned is not in the area of their jurisdictions, and IPR civil cases involving foreign, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The intermediate people's courts shall have jurisdiction as courts of first instance over IPR civil cases under the abovementioned standard, other than those IPR civil cases under jurisdiction of the basic people’s courts, which have been designated by the supreme people’s court to have jurisdiction as courts of first instance over IPR civil cases.
This adjustment also confirmed the highest standard of IPR civil cases of first instance under jurisdiction of those basic people’s courts having jurisdiction as courts over IPR civil cases of first instance, that is, those basic people’s courts shall have jurisdiction as courts over IPR civil cases of first instance with the value of object less than 5 millions yuan, and IPR civil cases of first instance with the value of object over 5 millions yuan but less than 10 millions yuan and the domiciles of parties concerned are all in the areas of jurisdiction of high people’s courts or intermediate people’s court. Specific standard shall be determined by high people's courts concerned and submitted to the supreme people's court for approval.
So far, the supreme people's court has designated 92 basic people's courts to have jurisdiction over general IPR civil cases. According to the submission of the high people's court, the specific standard of IPR civil cases of first instance that these basic people’s courts shall have jurisdictions also have been approved by the supreme people's court. Regarding the first instance of special IPR civil cases involving patent, new plant varieties and layout-design of integrated circuits disputes as well as disputes of recognizing well-known trademarks and monopoly, the jurisdiction of those cases shall abide by the special provisions of the supreme people's court.
This adjustment of the supreme people’s court changes the former relative concentrated jurisdiction of IPR civil cases, further confirms jurisdiction system of IPR cases, and increases the courts having jurisdiction over IPR civil cases. According to the statistics, in 2009, the local courts have totally received 30626 new IPR civil cases and have concluded 30509 IPR civil cases, respectively year-on-year increase by 25.49% and 29.73%, what’s more, the number of IPR civil cases remains growth momentum. This adjustment of the supreme people's court is suited to treat IPR civil cases rapidly, accurately and effectively, which perfects the protection of IPR from system.
