The Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate of China have long been conducting research work on lowering the threshold of intellectual property rights (IPR) crimes, said Zhang Qin with the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) on September 6. Preliminary solution has been basically worked out and relevant judicial explanation is to be released by the end of this year.

Zhang Qi said at a press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council, to lower the threshold of IPR criminal penalties is not to say that the old criteria were unreasonable or not in conformity to international standards. He said some international friends have misunderstandings because overseas protection of intellectual property rights usually resorts to justice. Therefore even a very small case is put to the court. China, in order to enhance the protection of intellectual property rights, has established parallel administrative and judicial management modes. Therefore many relatively small cases with relatively minor circumstances are settled through the administrative channel.

Considering the infringement of intellectual property rights in China is still very serious China has decided to further lower the threshold of criminal penalties in the judicial execution of the law. From this perspective further lowering the threshold in light of the current intellectual property rights situation in China indicates, of course, that the previous threshold was high relative to China's construction and needed to be further lowered. It does not, however, mean that compared with the international level the threshold we set was too high.

By People's Daily Online