Legal Application Rules and Improvement of Cross-border Intellectual Property Infringement

Abstract

With the deepening of globalization, cross-border intellectual property infringement acts occur frequently, and the demand for resolving such disputes is rising steadily. Article 50 of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Application of Laws to Foreign-related Civil Relations provides a normative path for the legal application in such cases. However, this provision has gaps in the jurisprudential interpretation of the “place where protection is claimed” and the introduced principle of party autonomy. In judicial practice, there are cases where Chinese law is directly applied without invoking conflict rules, and even the concept of “the law of the place where protection is claimed” is confused with “the lex fori”, “the lex loci delicti” and other concepts. The determination of the “place where protection is claimed” needs further standardization and clarification. Meanwhile, judges should correctly understand and apply conflict rules in the trial process, and select the applicable law in combination with specific case facts, so as to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of the parties.