Recently the Supreme People's Court (the "SPC") and the Supreme People's Procuratorate (the "SPP") jointly released the Interpretations (III) on Certain Issues Relating to Specific Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases of the Intellectual Property Rights Infringement (the "Interpretations"), with effect from September 14, 2020 and on.

The Interpretations, consisting of 12 articles, mainly cover the following three aspects: (1) the first is to stipulate the conviction and sentencing standards for the crime of infringing on trade secrets, and specify the methods of calculating different losses caused by the infringement on trade secrets in light of the degree of social harm of different behaviors, so as to unify the standards of application of law; (2) the second is to further clarify the specific identifications of the crimes, such as the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks by using a "trademark identical with a registered trademark", the crime of infringing on copyright by using the copyright "without the permission of the copyright owner", and the crime of infringing on trade secrets by "improper means", so as to unify the understanding of aforesaid identifications in judicial practice; (3) and the third is to clarify issues concerning the application of criminal punishment for the infringement on IP rights and the mastering of the criminal justice policy of properly combining leniency with severity, stipulate the circumstances where severe punishments, non-application of suspended sentences, and lighter punishments are applied respectively, so as to further regulate the standards for sentencing.

(Source: Supreme People’s Court)