Beijing High People’s Court Releases 2017 Patent Infringement Guidelines

On April 20, 2017 the Beijing High People’s Court released the Guidelines for Patent Infringement Determination (2017) in Chinese, English, and Japanese. This version replaces the previous Guidelines issued in 2013.
 
According to the Deputy Director of the Intellectual Property Office of the Beijing High People’s Court, JIAO Yan, the revised Guidelines reflect several changes. First, the new Guidelines further perfect the interpretative principles and methods for patent claims to rights with new articles on the principle of compliance with the object of invention and the differences in patent claims to rights. The Guidelines also standardize the specifics for interpretation for environment features, topic name, and technical content.
 
Additionally, the new Guidelines further clarifies the definition and infringement determination of functional characteristics in a claim. Lastly, the Guidelines provide further clarification on the hearings for design patents and joint infringement behavior based on the Supreme People’s Court Interpretation II of the Issues concerning the Specific Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights. 

The Guidelines contain a total of 153 articles and are comprised of the following parts: 

1. Determination of Protection Scope of the Patent for Invention or Utility Model
2. Determination of Infringement on the Patent for Invention and Utility Model
3. Determination of Protection Scope of Patent for Design
4. Determination of Infringement of Patent for Design
5. Determination of Acts of Patent Infringement
6. Defense of Patent Infringement