Study on the International Jurisdiction of Litigations regarding Intellectual Property Right (IPR) in China: Focusing on the 2024 Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China

Chinese jurisdictional system is stipulated in the Civil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China, which distinguishes between domestic civil procedures and foreign-related civil procedures, however it does not yet provide any prescribed specific jurisdictional for litigations related to foreign IPRs. Therefore, the Special Provisions on Foreign-Related Civil Procedures and General Provisions of Article 4 of the Civil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China, as well as the relevant judicial interpretations issued by the Supreme People's Court are applied to the litigations. Since the Special Provisions on Foreign-Related Civil Procedures in the 2024 Civil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China is significantly being revised for the first time in about 30 years, it is worthwhile to examine the international jurisdiction system for disputes involving foreign-related IPRs. The following jurisdictional system can be considered for litigations regarding foreign IPRs, focusing on the Special Provisions on Foreign-Related Civil Procedures in the 2024 Civil Procedure Law. (1) New establishment of exclusive jurisdiction over disputes concerning the validity of IPRs granted by domestic administrative institutions based on the principle of territoriality, one of the characteristics of IPR related litigations; (2) Provision of the basis from the Civil Procedure Law and relevant precedents for jurisdictional judgment whether the IPR infringement occurred at the place of infringement, the place of the result and on the internet is toward China with respect to IPR infringement litigations; (3) Re-accreditation of the consensual jurisdiction in foreign-related civil procedures and deletion of the existing consensual jurisdiction of the court with actual connection to the dispute; (4) Establishment of the legal basis with the First Seized Court Principle in the continental law system and the Anti-suit Injunction and Forum Non-Conveniences in the common law system in order to solve the issues of abusive lis alibi pendens arising from the issue of negotiating the license fee on the implementation of FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) term for standard patented technologies for wireless communication technologies; (5) Implementation of Grade jurisdiction, Territorial jurisdiction, and exclusive jurisdiction by Chinese intellectual property court based on the implementation of a four-level, two-tiered court system.