Malicious Initiation of Intellectual Property Civil Litigation in China: The Emerging Jurisprudence of the Supreme People's Court Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property 17.1 (2027), forthcoming 01.01.2027.
In China’s evolving intellectual property enforcement landscape, the Supreme People’s Court’s (SPC) treatment of malicious initiation of intellectual property litigation (MIIPL) provides a case study in court-driven development in the absence of a clear legislative definition. Although MIIPL was formally introduced in 2011 as a distinct case classification, it has only recently been shaped into a preliminary jurisprudential framework through SPC rulings. Drawing on all 17 substantive SPC decisions identified since then, this article reconstructs a working four-element framework of MIIPL: the absence of a valid asserted right or factual basis, conscious awareness, damage and causation. It argues that this framework operates in practice as a quasi-objective, knowledge-based test informed by general civil law principles, placing primary weight on objectively ascertainable defects and surrounding circumstances rather than on subjective malice as such. This approach reflects a judicial compromise between disciplining abusive IP enforcement and preserving legitimate access to courts. Yet the framework’s doctrinal basis remains unstable, drawing unevenly on tort liability, abuse of rights, and procedural good faith. Its future development will depend not only on further SPC rulings, but also on improved institutional coordination and, in the longer term, clearer legislative conditions governing IP litigation.
