Sun Huapu, the Chief Judge of the Supervisory Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court made public that China’s supreme court has named a Judicial Court of Intellectual Property to handle such cases nationwide.
The idea is that such a judicial court would be established in Beijing. Emma Barraclough of MIP wrote:
“But there is still no consensus about what form an IP court should take. One possibility is that it would just hear patent cases, while another is that it would accept all appeals from civil, administrative and criminal cases dealing with intellectual property. Officials are studying systems used in other countries.“ Read more here.
Blaming and shaming
The Supreme People’s Court has launched a web site to publicize product piracy cases, to blame and shame and discourage pirates.
Much ado about nothing?
Jiang Zhipei, a supreme court judge who handles product piracy cases, was surprised that foreign governments make strong complaints about piracy:
“Some 95 percent of product piracy cases involve violations against Chinese companies, with only about 5 percent stemming from complaints from foreign companies, Jiang said.
“So it’s a strange phenomenon that foreign governments, and some U.S. congressmen, have made very strong complaints about this,” he said.”“
Read Dean Visser’s Associated Press story on Chron.com where you can watch a telling picture of pirated DVD’s (already including Ang Lee’s Oscar winning Brokeback Mountain) on sale today on a sidewalk in Beijing for 5 Yuan (US$60 cents).
