On May 8, the Supreme People's Court held a press conference in Beijing and released the 2019 China Environmental Resources Trial (White Paper), China Environmental Justice Development Report (Green Paper) and the People's Court Environmental Trial Typical Cases.  The white paper shows that in 2019, the national courts further strengthened the protection of intellectual property rights such as new plant varieties, biological genetic resources and genes, accepted 38 disputes involving new plant varieties, and concluded 25 cases.

The white paper shows that in 2019, courts across the country accepted 39,957 first-instance criminal cases of various environmental resources, concluded 36,733 cases, sentenced 114,633 criminals, and the number of closed cases increased by 50.9% and 43.4% year-on-year respectively.  It received 202,671 civil first-instance cases of various environmental resources and concluded 189,120 cases, up 5.6% and 3.5% year-on-year respectively.  47588 first-instance cases of various environmental resources were accepted, and 42078 were concluded, up 12.7% and 0.8% year-on-year respectively.

The white paper points out that in 2019, the People's Court will strengthen judicial protection of biodiversity, focusing on hearing cases of genetic (gene) diversity, species diversity, and ecosystem diversity, as well as biological (animal, plant, microbial) and their judicial protection of the owned genes and living environment, and strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights such as new plant varieties, biological genetic resources and genes.

In practice, the People’s Court emphasized that no unit or individual may produce or sell propagating materials of the authorized variety for commercial purposes without the permission of the owner of the variety right; at the same time, it also points out that the new plant variety right is a publicized right, the producers and operators at the same filed should pay corresponding attention, which has a positive significance for protecting and encouraging the cultivation and use of new plant varieties.

                                              From PEOPLE.CN

May 8th, 2020