Beijing court to adopt unified criteria of patent infringement

The Beijing Higher People's Court issued, on September 29, 2001, a set of guidelines (criteria) for determining patent infringement. This is the first time a higher court in China has ever laid down criteria of patent infringement since China's Patent Law was put into force on April 1, 1985. Although the criteria will only be legally effective within the jurisdiction of the Court, i.e. Beijing municipality, it will set an example to and will undoubtedly produce a great impact on courts all over China.
The guidelines contain 129 articles divided into six parts, i.e. how to determine protection scope, how to determine infringement of patents for invention and patents for utility model, how to determine infringement of design patents, defense of non-infringement, and definitions.
The principles that have already been adopted by some judges in trials are for the first time put into the guidelines, such as doctrine of equivalent and doctrine of estoppels. In addition to this, the guidelines also set up some rules that should be followed by the judges in determining infringement. For example, a claim should be interpreted according to the contents of the technical solution defined in the claim instead of the literal meaning of the claim and court may require the plaintiff, in a design patent infringement suit, to submit a statement indicating the creative portions or contents in the design.