On December 26, Tort Liability Law of the People's Republic of China was passed at the 12th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress. According to the prescriptions, copyrights, patent rights, exclusive rights for trademark are all protected as legal rights and benefits of civil subject, and tort liabilities mainly include ceasing the infringing act, eliminating the effects of the act, making an apology or paying compensation for damages and so on. Deputy Director of Law Committee of the National People's Congress Wang Shengming told the reporter that, the tort liability law is a supplement and consummation to related intellectual property laws, and once infringements to intellectual property rights happened, the related laws on intellectual property are preferential, and then tort liability law would be considered.

Most considered "Article 36"

In recent years, internet infringements on intellectual property rights accepted by all courts across the country are increasing in evidence, involving fields of trademark, copyright, unfair competition and several others. The scope for the infringements is enlarging with more and more new problems emerging. Thus, the Article 36 of the Tort Liability Law attracts mostly.

According to the Article 36, any web user or service provider who infringes others' civil rights and benefits shall undertake the tort liability, and meanwhile, the law specifies the forms of liability for both: once infringements by web users happened, the infringed party has the right to inform the web service provider to delete, shield, cut the links and other necessary measures; web service provider who hasn't take necessary measures after the information shall bear joint liability with the web user; web service provider who find users use the web service to infringe others' civil rights and benefits but hasn't taken any measures shall bear joint liability with the user. [Chinese version is available on cipnews.com.cn]