CN Supreme Court announced that defendant could claim from plaintiff in abusive litigation yesterday on 3 June 2021.
The link of the announcement is as below:
The defendant could claim reasonable expenses. Attorney fees, travel and accommodation expenses are specifically recited in the announcement, but I would expect other reasonable expenses could be included like those for investigation, experimental appraisal, finding witness, notarization, and so on. The defendant could also file a separate complaint to claim for such reasonable expenses.
Basis of the claim seems to be from the good faith principle under the Civil Code, Patent Law, and Trademark Law. Whether the practice of groundless threat as in the UK would be used, which may affect IP owners' willingness to go after secondary infringers, let's wait and see.
IP owners have been able to claim for reasonable expenses in litigation when defending their rights in China for a long time (for patents, since 2010). It has always been a puzzle to me why the defendant could not do the same. Now this announcement makes things more balanced.
Seems to me this could be bad news to trolls, however.
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