CHINA – BEIJING Trends and Developments Contributed by: Ye Zhao and Liwei Jiang, Jingtian & Gongcheng
stantially reduced caseload going forward, will carry considerable precedential weight. Trend 3: Evidence obstruction triggers direct punitive escalation In four of the 11 cases, defendants refused to produce financial records, sales data, or technical drawings in response to court orders. The SPC characterised this conduct as “evidence obstruction” ( 举证妨碍 ) and treated it as a direct trigger for the highest punitive multipliers. No 1228 (Chemical Production Line): The defendant ignored a court order to produce tax filings. The SPC used the plaintiff’s highest recorded profit margin (45.33%) and the defendant’s own quot - ed unit price (CNY300,000/tonne) to calculate infring - ing profits and awarded the full claimed amount of CNY60 million. No 2039 (CNC Machine Tools): The defendant refused to produce technical records and actively confused the proceedings. The SPC applied a 3× punitive multiplier, yielding a CNY381.63 million award. No 3118 (CBCT Medical Devices): The defendant refused at both first and second instance to submit production and sales volumes. The SPC used the defendant’s own publicly declared projected sales figures as the base and applied a 1× punitive multiplier, awarding the full claimed amount of CNY198.96 million. The practical message is unambiguous: refusing to produce court-ordered evidence does not reduce liability, it directly elevates a defendant’s exposure to the maximum available punitive damages. Courts will use the plaintiff’s most favourable available assump - tions, highest profit margin, highest unit price, publicly stated forecasts, to calculate the base, and will then apply the maximum punitive multiplier. The anticipat - ed benefit of withholding records is wholly illusory.
Trend 4: Technical contribution rate maximised – value-apportionment logic rejected In trade secret cases, courts have historically bor - rowed the value-apportionment framework from pat - ent law, routinely assigning contribution rates of 10%– 15%. In the 2025 decisions, the SPC established a clear contrary principle: where the trade secret directly determined the infringer’s ability to enter the market or capture a commercial opportunity, the contribution rate is either 100% or the question does not arise – all infringing profits are attributed to the secret. Of eight cases in which contribution rate was addressed, five assigned 100% or no apportionment at all (2023 ZhiMinZhong No 2039; 2023 ZhiMin - Zhong No 868; 2023 ZhiMinZhong No 655; 2023 ZhiMinZhong No 3118; and 2023 ZhiMinZhong No 2880). Rates of 75% (2023 ZhiMinZhong No 2467); 33% (2023 ZhiMinZhong No 1228); and 20% (2023 ZhiMinZhong No 445) were applied only where the secret was one component among several and other intellectual property clearly contributed to the prod - uct’s value. This shift has substantial practical consequences. Under the old apportionment approach, a trade secret worth hundreds of millions of yuan in commercial val - ue might generate a damages base of only tens of millions after applying a 10%–15% contribution factor. Under the 2025 framework, where the secret is the gateway to the market opportunity, the entire profit stream is available as the base for damages – before any punitive multiplier is applied. The interaction of 100% contribution rates with punitive multipliers of three times explains much of the dramatic damages escalation visible in the 2025 data. Trend 5: Substantive shift in the burden of proof – the evidentiary threshold is lowered Trade secret rights holders have long struggled with the practical impossibility of proving covert misappro - priation by direct evidence. The SPC activated Article 32 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law to materially shift the burden to defendants in multiple cases. • Rule 1 – Access plus substantial similarity is sufficient In 2023 SPC ZhiMinZhong No 1669 , the Court held that requiring direct evidence of misappropriation is
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