Date: 2021-03-15
On March 3, 2021, the Supreme People's Court issued the "Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on the Application of Punitive Damages in Civil Cases of Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights". In order to accurately understand the application and ensure the correct implementation of the punitive damages system, the Supreme People's Court issued six "Typical Cases of Applying Punitive Damages in Civil Cases of Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights” These typical cases include the disputes between Guangzhou Tinci Materials Co., Ltd. and Anhui Newman Fine Chemicals Co., Ltd. on technical secret infringement, Erdos Group and Miqi Company on trademark infringement, Xiaomi Technology and Zhongshan Pentium on trademark infringement and unfair competition, Wuliangye Yibin Company Limited and Xu Zhonghua on trademark infringement, Adidas and Ruan Guoqiang on trademark infringement, and a trademark infringement dispute between Opple and Huasheng.
The case on technical secret infringement between Guangzhou Tinci Materials Co., Ltd. and Anhui Newman Fine Chemicals Co., Ltd. was the first punitive compensation case for intellectual property infringement judged by the Supreme People's Court. The judgment of the case fully considered the subjective malice of the accused infringer, the business of infringement, the hindrance of proof, the duration of the accused infringement, the scale of infringement and other factors, and determined the statutory multiple of punitive damages to the maximum at five times. Anhui Newman Fine Chemicals Co., Ltd. was ordered to compensate Guangzhou Tinci Materials Co., Ltd. and Jiujiang Tianci Company for economic losses of RMB 30 million and reasonable expenses of RMB 400,000. Defendants Hua, Liu, Hu and Zhu were jointly and severally liable to compensate RMB 5 million, RMB 30 million, RMB 1 million and RMB 1 million respectively.
