Anhui High People’s Court Cleverly tackling the Second Instance Cases on IP

  During the trial of IP(Intellectual Property) cases, the civil third tribunal of Anhui High People’s Court has gradually formed a conciliation mechanism throughout the whole process before/at/after a court session. Statistics show that the success rate in conciliation of IP cases of second instance concluded by Anhui High People’s Court was 30.8% in 2003, 42.9% in 2004, and up to 55.6% in the first nine months of this year. The rate of initiatively obligation fulfillment of the concluded cases through conciliation has reached 100% in the past three years.

  Before the trial, the collegial panel combined pre-trial conciliation with pre-trial procedure, with holding on to the principle of being voluntary and lawful. After a case is accepted, before starting the trial, the judges respectively consulted each party in advance whether they would like to conciliate. During the in-court trial, the collegial panel pays attention to conciliation while hearing the case, and they pay attention not only to the procedure, but also to elaborate the theory of law, esp. to exert the power of interpreting during the process of questioning the witnesses and authentication in the stage of court investigation, in order to give each party a sufficient and clear knowledge of their petitions. As for the cases which some of the parties are unwilling to settle through conciliation in-court, the collegial panel devises actively a proper time and extent for an after-trial conciliation, creating an atmosphere with equality, ease and harmony.

October 9, 2005 

Source: www.cnipr.com.cn