Shanghai court dishes out record fine for copyright infringement

The Shanghai Intellectual Property Court has ordered a Shanghai-based Chinese company to pay a record high compensation of 15.05 million yuan ($2.2 million) to a European software company for infringement of copyright.

In the ruling delivered in June but made public recently, TJ Innova Engineering and Technology, a car design company, was ordered to cease its unauthorized use of Catia, a computer-aided design software developed by France-headquartered Dassault Systemes.

According to the court, the compensation amount was a record high due to factors such as the high price of the software involved – Dassault Systemes claims that one set costs 200,000 yuan – as well as the length of time the defendant has been using the pirated software (since 2006) and the car design company's malicious intention.

The court also noted that the pirated software was installed in as many as 160 computers at TJ Innova Engineering and Technology.

This case comes at a time when Shanghai is looking to bolster the protection of the intellectual property rights as part of its plan to achieve further opening-up.

Li Shulan, vice president of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court, said that the court will continue to dish out severe punishments to those who illegally use pirated software so as to safeguard the rights and interests of copyright holders.

As one of the first intellectual property courts in China, the Shanghai court has accepted 6,561 cases involving intellectual property rights violation since its establishment in 2014.