China’s judicial organs (the Supreme People’s Court [“SPC”] and Supreme People’s Procuratorate [“SPP”]) continue to work on trade secret related judicial developments, with the release on June 17, 2020 of the “Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Specific Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Infringement of Intellectual Property (3) (Draft for Comment)《关于办理侵犯知识产权刑事案件具体应用法律若干问题的解释（三）（征求意见稿）》.

This JI covers trademark, copyright, and trade secret-related crimes. Comments are due by August 2 2020 at the SPC (Third Civil or IP Division) and SPP. The focus on trade secrets is self-evident from this document.  The Chinese characters for “secret” 机密appear 36 times, trademarks 商标18 times, and a copyrighted “work”著作 8 times.

Among the major provisions that implicate trade secrets are: (a) clarification of how to satisfy criminal thresholds for trade secret enforcement, including use of illegal losses, gains and causing bankruptcy or major operational difficulties (Art. 4); how to calculate losses, including lost profits, lost sales, revenue and other benefits from the misappropriated trade secret (Art. 5); calculating the proportional value of a trade secret in combination with another  product or technology (Art. 6); use of research and development costs if the secret is lost to satisfy criminal thresholds (Art. 7); other compensatory remedial expenses (Art. 8); sanctions for violating protective orders (Art. 9); increases in penalties for entities that are mainly engaged in IP infringement or in the case of “infringement of commercial secrets for foreign institutions, organizations and personnel” (Art. 10, see my earlier blog); a reduction of penalty when the trade secret is disclosed to obtain an IP right, such as a patent, and the right is vested in the trade secret owner (Art. 11); and prohibition against engaging in certain occupations may be imposed for a period of time as a condition of a sentence (Art. 12).

Comment: trade secrets have often proven to be the subject of intense trade pressure.  However, the pressure is often not persistent, and the issues may therefore also receive inconsistent attention over long periods of time.  Recent trade pressure has contributed to such laudable developments as the revised trade secret law (AUCL), the Phase 1 Trade Agreement, the recent increase in legislative and policy work from the courts on trade secrets including work on JI’s and recent plans by SAMR to revise trade secret related rules.

If you are interested in learning more about how inconsistent trade pressure may have prolonged consideration of trade secret issues such as the definition of a “business operator”, limitations of protection to Chinese “citizens”, the availability of preliminary injunctions, and concerns over requiring “practical applicability” for trade secret protection for as long as 25 years, here is a pdf of a presentation that I gave last week at a Berkeley webinar.

July 4 update: Here is a translation of the draft JI.

July 20 update: Here are the comments of the American Bar Association’s Section on Intellectual Property Law and International Law on the six recent JI’s involving IP, including this JI, and others previously blogged about: Judicial Interpretation on Certain Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Civil Cases Involving the Misappropriation of Trade Secrets (comments due July 27); Official SPC Reply on the Application of Law in Network-Related Intellectual Property Infringement Disputes (comments due July 27); Guiding Opinions on Hearing Intellectual Property Disputes; Involving E-Commerce Platforms (comments due July 27); Certain Provisions on Evidence in Civil IP Litigation (comments due July 31); Opinions on Increasing Punishment for Intellectual Property Infringement (comments due July 31); Judicial Interpretation Concerning Some Issues on the Specific Application of Law for Handling Criminal Cases of Infringement upon Intellectual Property Rights (comments due August 2).

Updated: June 30, 2020, July 4, 2020, July 20, 2020.