New Leading Case in China to Allow Large?Monetary Damages to Punish Intentional?Mark Infringement

In China, typically the cost for IPR infringement is low but the same for protection is high. This reality had caused the difficulties to protect IPRs from infringement in China. To change this situation, a leading case recently published by the Supreme Court of PRC says the monetary damages for intentional infringement of mark should be high, in order to punish the infringer. In this case, a well-known trademark was used by another companies on its can fruit products and therefore that company had infringed mark owner's right. At the first instance, the court only ordered ￥3,000,000 for monetary damages as a result of intentional infringement to the mark. However, the Supreme Court modified that number to ￥10,000,000. The Supreme Court says that the monetary damages resulted from mark infringement should consider many factors to decide how much is fair for owner and how much is adequate to punish the infringer. Those factors include the awareness of a mark, subjective malice, sales/market range as well the degree in confusing the public. The infringer should have never been allowed to make profit from the infringement act.