Beijing IP Court Announces Debut Top 10 List of Typical Competition and Monopoly Cases

 

On 16 March 2022, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court (BIPC) held a press briefing, during which the court made its first announcement of Top 10 Typical Competition and Monopoly Cases. The chosen cases comprise 3 cases related to abuse of a dominant market position and 7 unfair competition cases concerning such issues as data scraping and trade secret infringement. As noted by the court, the typical cases were selected taking into account fair and equal attention to the cases' reflection of various industry concerns, the protection of different subjects, and the regulation of new types of competition acts.

 

During the briefing, the court also announced the creation of a competition and monopoly committee and a competition adjudication team under the Professional Judges Meeting, a mechanism proposed by the Supreme People's Court of China in 2015 to provide advice on legal issues for the reference of judges in hearing a case. These steps were taken to strengthen the judicial adjudication of competition and monopoly cases to cater for the substantial growth of these cases received by the court in recent years as well as the expanding coverage of the cases in terms of fields, industries, and business models.

 

The BIPC is the first intermediate-level IP court in China created in November 2014. From its inception until the end of 2021, the court has accepted 1,436 and concluded 1,244 monopoly and unfair competition-related cases.