The Supreme Court promulgated a Notice on harnessing intellectual property for development of culture and economy on December 20, a sign of making judicial protection policies on ICH official for the first time.
The Notice further defined the burden of proof in cases of method patents (besides manufacturing method patents) of a new product, and urged relevant departments to make efforts in curbing illegal activities such as malicious squatting and brand violations.
Since China entered WTO ten years ago, the country has made great progress in intellectual property protection, reflected in a rapid growth of IP cases. Courts received 42,931 IP civil cases of first instance in 2010, while the number in 2001 was only 5,265.[Chinese version is available on txzx.workercn.cn]
(Source: IPR in China)
