According to a decision made by the Standing Committee of National People’s Congress on October 26, 2018, appeal cases involving strong technical backgrounds will be heard by China’s Supreme People’s Court ( SPC ), effective January 1st, 2019. Such legislation that aims to unify standards for hearing intellectual properties (IP) cases and further enhance the judicial protections for IP rights covers disputes on invention patent, utility model patent, new varieties of plants, layout design of integrated circuits, technical secret, computer software, anti-trust, etc.
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