On Tuesday 2nd of January, 2018, China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) promulgated the "Circular on Creating Favorable Legal Landscape to Facilitate Innovation and Startup of Entrepreneurs by Leveraging the Adjudicatory Function of Court" (the Circular), in a bid to reassure the business community.

The Circular advocates for:
● protection of the entrepreneurs' personal freedomandpropertyrights;
● protection of the legitimate rights of honest entrepreneurs;
● protection of the entrepreneurs' intellectual property rights;
● protection of the entrepreneurs' autonomy in management;
● execution of the favorable judgmentawarded to theentrepreneurs;
● correction of the injustice against the entrepreneurs;
● establishment of stable jurisprudence on protection of the entrepreneurs' legitimate rights; and

● raising the legal awareness of the entrepreneurs.

With respect to the protection of IPRs, the SPC vows to:
1. Improve the rule of evidence to ensure that it is applicable to IPR litigations, so as to facilitate the evidence adduction of IP right owners;
2. Promote the "Three in One" initiative to ensure that in all People's courts, IP cases of all types (civil, administrative or criminal) shall be handled by one single division of the court at all levels (first instance and appeal), so as to enhance the efficacy of IPR judicial protection;
3. Establish judicial assessment mechanism on damages to ensure that: 1) damages are assessed by taking into account the market value of the IPRs involved; and 2) damages are granted mainly to serve the purpose of compensating the IP right owners, followed by the objective of punishing the infringers; and increase the compensation for IPR infringement;
4. Explore the possibility of establishing IPR punitive damages system to balance the low infringement cost in contrast with the high expense in IPR enforcement; and
5. Protect the trade secrets and other legitimate rights of the employer while attaching equal importance to safeguarding employee's rights and promoting business growth.