On the morning of April 25, as the 25th World Intellectual Property Day approaches, Hainan High People’s Court hosted a press conference and released the white paper of 2024 judicial protection of intellectual property and model cases at Hainan courts. Ms. Xia Junli, Member of the Leading Party Members’ Group and Vice-President of Hainan High People’s Court, attended the conference and made the release.

In 2024, Hainan courts giving full play to the adjudicative function of handling IP-related civil, criminal and administrative cases accepted 4,417 first-instance intellectual property cases, and concluded 4,877 cases by law. Among these cases, copyright infringements take a larger share, patent infringement disputes and competition cases increase fast and trademark infringement disputes take a high percentage in foreign-related cases.

Hainan High People’s Court promulgated the Opinions on Providing Judicial Assurance for Hainan Free Trade Port to Accelerate the Development of New Quality Productive Forces, and made arrangement of judicial measures for serving and safeguarding the seed industry, sci-tech innovation, deep-sea technologies and other key industrial factors of new quality productive forces.

Hainan courts focus on key industries and serve the advantageous new quality productive forces development. Hainan High People’s Court joined Hainan Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Hainan Administration of Forestry and other departments, seven of them, to release the Working Plan for Strengthening the IP Protection of Asexual Reproduction Plants, and set up with Hainan Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and Hainan Provincial People’s Procuratorate an interdepartmental coordination mechanism to jointly crack down on crimes of suspected sale of fake or inferior seeds as listed as supervised cases of the Ministry of Public Security, seeking strength in seeds industry and intensifying seed-related IP protection. Hainan High People’s Court partnered with Hainan Intellectual Property Office and several other departments to circulate the Hainan Measures for Data IP Registration Management (trial) and released the Minutes of Hainan Courts Working Conference on the Trial of NFT-Related Civil Cases to promote the healthy development of the NFT market, enhancing strength in digital industry and intensifying the protection of digital economy development.

Hainan courts shore up the IP protection of such emerging ocean industries as deep-sea technology and smart ocean equipment manufacturing, and serve the high-quality development of the ocean economy to enhance strength in marine industry. Hainan FTP IP Court set up judicial liaison post in Wenchang International Aerospace City, and conducted on-site investigations and several workshops on the IP management, utilization and protection of aerospace technology innovation, enhancing strength in the aerospace industry and intensifying the protection of deep space business. Hainan courts serve the strategic deployment of enhancing strength in environmental protection, strengthen the protection of green low-carbon industries, promote the green, sustainable development by fair administration of justice, and assist Hainan to achieve the goal of ecological civilization.

Hainan courts focus on key factors, and create a business environment for new quality productive forces development; persist in fighting monopoly and unfair competition, stop by law monopoly agreements, abuse of market dominance and other acts of monopoly, and punish unfair competitions like unauthorized association with famous brands to ensure business environment construction; handled 101 competition cases and maintained fair market competition. Hainan courts circulated the Opinions of Hainan High People’s Court on Comprehensively Promoting the Modernization of Foreign-Related Adjudication, handled 41 foreign-related IP cases and participated in international symposiums on judicial protection of intellectual property, Asian Seed Congress and other international conferences to serve high-level opening-up. Hainan courts precisely mark out the legal boundary between service invention and non-service invention, properly handle disputes over ownership of results, remuneration of service invention, restriction of competition and infringement of trade secrets arising from the flow of innovation and entrepreneurship talents to safeguard the inventor’s legitimate rights and interests; intensify crackdown on repeat, deliberate and large-scale infringements, employ punitive compensation and other reliefs, and maintain strict protection.

Hainan courts improve policies on diversified resolution of IP disputes, and have established litigation-mediation interface with 21 organizations; conduct administrative mediation and industrial mediation, and 23.52% of the IP cases in 2024 were concluded through mediation, significantly preventing and resolving disputes at the source. Hainan courts properly employ judicial suggestions, sent judicial suggestions to the relevant organs on the rectification of Karaoke dispute from the source, fortified supervision of company domicile registration and monitoring of Nanfan activities, and achieved significant effect in comprehensive rectification. Hainan FTP IP Court straightened out mechanisms to inquire and control IP transfer, improved value determination mechanism, and explored diversified processing mechanisms, seeking a path to enforce IP rights as property.

Hainan High People’s Court joined Hainan Administration for Market Regulation and other departments to release the Measures of Hainan Free Trade Port for the Management of the Blacklist of Seriously Dishonest Entities in Intellectual Property (trial) and signed with Hainan Provincial People’s Procuratorate the Memorandum of Cooperation on Preventing and Fighting Willful IP Litigations Concerning the Right of Communication Through Information Networks to establish rules to punish dishonest entities and mechanism to prevent and fight willful IP litigations, promoting the formation of a resultant force for the judicial protection of intellectual property.

During the press conference, nine model IP cases handled by Hainan courts in 2024 were released.