New amendment

The latest amendment to the nation's Criminal Law, which took effect on March 1, revised the crime of infringing on IPR and included general acts that were not previously treated as crimes.

Zhang said activities now classified as crimes under IPR provisions include stealing, spying, buying illegally and providing commercial secrets for overseas institutions, organizations and personnel. Bribery, fraud and electronic intrusion have been classified as improper acts for obtaining commercial secrets under the crime of infringing on commercial secrets.

The amendment has also adjusted the criteria for incrimination under several kinds of crimes and made changes in provisions for applying the maximum legal penalty. Except for the crime of patent counterfeit, all crimes of infringing on IPR will incur prison sentences, he said.

"The obvious change is that the standards for criminalizing IPR infringement have been lowered, and the punishment for violators is tougher."

In one case cited by the SPP, the procuratorate in Rui'an, Zhejiang province, charged Jin Yiying, a former employee of an optical instrument company in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, with the crime of infringing on commercial secrets in 2018.

Jin signed a confidentiality agreement with the company when he was hired in 2005. But after leaving the company in 2011, he registered a new company in the name of his brothers-in-law and used technologies stolen from his former employer to produce similar products, costing his former employer a loss of more than 1.22 million yuan ($187,785).

Although Jin did not admit to the criminal act of infringing on commercial secrets, the procuratorate filed a case against Jin based on evidence in August 2018. Jin was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined 700,000 yuan in June 2019.

The procurator-general stressed that Premier Li Keqiang said China will promote high-quality development of the real economy through innovation, improve the capacity for science and technology innovation and strengthen IPR protection. Li addressed the issues in his Government Work Report at the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress on March 5.

While fully performing their criminal procuratorial functions, Zhang said prosecutors will also pay more attention to civil and administrative procuratorial functions, enhance judicial supervision and cooperate with other departments to comprehensively protect IPR.

"The intellectual property rights for domestic and foreign enterprises will be treated equally and protected on an equal basis," he said.

Zhang said procuratorates are actively working with the courts and administrative authorities that handle intellectual property issues to establish a data exchange mechanism. That would enable prosecutors to conduct analysis and more accurately detect problems in the judicial protection of IPR. Also, public interest litigation is being explored to protect IPR.

The SPP instructed procuratorates at all levels to strengthen the protection of commercial secrets in key technical areas under the new situation. While dealing with infringement cases, prosecutors were urged to protect commercial secrets and prevent malicious rivals from seeking criminal prosecution of competitors.

The infringement of commercial secrets concerning advanced and core technologies that threaten the survival and development of enterprises will be targeted as a priority in the next step, to support and protect innovation.