Study on the Concentration of Jurisdiction over Intellectual Property Cases: The Example of China

In today’s world, the Intellectual Property (IP) dispute resolution has become more important and requires uniformity and specialization; thus, there is a global trend toward concentrating jurisdiction over IP cases or establishing specialized IP courts based on the concentration of jurisdiction. This has resulted not only from the distinctive characteristics that differentiate IP cases from general civil cases, but also for practical reasons. Each country, however, concentrates its jurisdiction over IP cases to various extents and operates the courts differently. For example, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a national appellate patent court, has second-instance jurisdiction over all patent cases in the United States. In Japan, jurisdiction over technology-related cases in the first instance is given to only two general district courts in Tokyo and Osaka. The Intellectual Property High Court of Japan, as a special branch of the Tokyo High Court, exclusively hears all technology-related cases in the second instance. The Patent Court of Korea has exclusive jurisdiction over appeals from the Korean Intellectual Property Office; however, all IP civil cases in South Korea are subject to the jurisdiction of general courts, not the Patent Court. China recently set up three specialized IP courts in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. These three IP courts deal with all kinds of IP cases but have jurisdiction over only the city or province in which they are located. The concentration of jurisdiction over IP cases is an ongoing project in some countries such as South Korea and China. Many efforts have been made to concentrate jurisdiction over IP infringement cases in South Korea. As reform projects in China are not yet nearing completion, there is still sufficient leeway to implement jurisdiction concentration for IP cases there. One thing to note is that there are practical reasons for, and many advantages to, concentrating jurisdiction over IP cases or establishing specialized IP courts, but there are some disadvantages, too. In addition, establishing specialized IP courts and concentrating jurisdiction over IP cases in one or a few general courts ultimately aim at the same purposes, but certain aspects of the two approaches are significantly different. Therefore, a country such as China or South Korea that intends to concentrate jurisdiction over IP cases or operate specialized IP courts needs to first analyze its own situation carefully in deciding which model to employ.