Preservation Of Evidence In Intellectual Property Related Litigations

Without evidences, neither party could be able to win a civil litigation. In intellectualproperty cases, measures for preserving evidence are important tools that underpin thesystem for intellectual property litigation. Such evidence is required in order to prove theinfringement of IP rights, to identify individuals and entities that are responsible for theinfringement or otherwise involved in the supply chain or to support claims for quicklybringing the infringement to an end before a Court. Therefore preservation of evidence is alegal system that was designed for procedural justice, substantial justice and justice oflawsuit.However, evidences in intellectual property litigations are usually invisible,concealment and highly technology related. So these specialties bring many difficulties tothe application of evidence preservation by involving parties, the initiative actions by Court and the enforcement of evidence preservation order. This paper, starting from theconcept, characteristics and a series of laws and regulations of evidence preservation inintellectual property related litigations, discussed the problems existing in theory andpractice. Hope this paper is helpful to improve the legal system of evidence preservation inChina.In total four aspects of evidence preservation in intellectual property related litigationshave been studied and discussed in this paper: the related theory of the evidencepreservation, the related extraterritorial experience of evidence preservation, the overviewof Chinese current laws®ulations on evidence preservation and the existing problems.Based on the study on evidence preservation in intellectual property related litigations,advice and suggestions are proposed to improve the legal system.