China’s Supreme People's Court issued the Guiding Opinions on People's Courts' Service and Guarantee for Further Expansion of Opening-up (the "Opinions").

The Opinions focus on three fields, namely administrative trial, intellectual property-related trial and cross-border trial and execution, and call for increased judicial protection of intellectual property, stringent implementation of the system of punitive damages for intellectual property infringement, and the improvement of foreign-related intellectual property litigation system to provide a market environment featuring fair competition for Chinese and foreign parties. Shanghai Dongjin finds the main points as follows.

1. to improve the political stance, and find the combination point and focus of judicial service and guarantee for the expansion of opening-up;
2. to adhere to the basic principles for foreign-related litigation and protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese and foreign parties in accordance with the law;
3. to further promote the modernization of foreign-related commercial and maritime adjudication system, and service trade investment liberalization and facilitation;

To promote the modernization of the trial system for foreign-related commercial and maritime cases, the Opinions demands that the courts precisely ascertain and apply international treaties, conventions and foreign laws to strengthen the international credibility of adjudication. The Opinions put forward the construction of litigation service platform for foreign parties to provide efficient, convenient and low-cost judicial services for foreign parties. The platform is currently under construction. At the same time, it is necessary to promote the in-depth integration of foreign-related trials and Internet justice, and strengthen the application of frontier technologies such as big data, cloud computing, blockchain, artificial intelligence, 5g and other cutting-edge technologies in the field of foreign-related trials.

4. to enhance juridical protection in various fields of opening-up to create a law-based, international and convenient business environment. The Opinions stresses the need to implement the punitive compensation mechanism for intellectual property infringement cases.
5. to prevent and resolve material risks to resolutely maintain a stable development environment;
6. to deepen international judicial assistance and judicial exchanges and cooperation to enhance the international influence of China's judicial system.

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