Description
Judicial protection of intellectual property (“IP”) rights in China has been perceived to be limited because, among other problems, the amounts of damages awarded by Chinese courts in IP infringement cases have historically been small. However, this state of affairs may be changing, as China’s Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) rendered a landmark judgment in a case involving large-scale infringement of trade secrets, allowing the victims to receive an amount equivalent to almost USD 90 million as compensation. As analyzed by Nathan Harpainter and David Zhao, Co-Managing Editors of SINOTALKS®, the innovative approach taken by the SPC to calculate the damages in the landmark case is essentially based on the concept of “unjust enrichment”. The steps followed by the SPC to do the calculation are helpful but inadequate. To help China develop its jurisprudence in this important area, the two co-authors discuss related U.S. experiences.
中国对知识产权的司法保护力度普遍被认为是有限的。这主要是因为中国法院在知识产权侵权案件中判予的赔偿数额历来较低。然而，这种情况可能正在改变，因为中国最高人民法院（“最高法”）在一宗涉及大规模商业秘密侵权的案件中做出了一项具有里程碑意义的判决，受害者获得了相当于近9千万美元的赔偿金。根据丝络谈®联席执行编辑韩霖森和赵炜的分析，最高法在该里程碑案件中计算损害赔偿的创新方法本质上是基于“不当得利”的概念。最高法所遵循的计算步骤虽然有益，但亦有不足。为了帮助中国发展这一重要领域的法理，两位合著者探讨了美国的相关经验。
