HE Zhonglin, First Deputy Chief Judge of the Intellectual Property Court of Supreme People’s Court
最高人民法院知识产权庭副庭长郃中林法官
尊敬的Philip McConnaughay院长、茅少伟副院长，各位嘉宾，老师们、同学们：
Distinguished Dean Philip McConnaughay, Associate Dean Mao Shaowei, Dear faculty and students, guests,
大家好！很高兴受邀在北京大学国际法学院2022届毕业典礼上致辞。虽然未曾踏足STL，但经常听满运龙教授讲你们的故事，很是引以为傲，也颇有共鸣。最高人民法院不少大法官和高级法官曾受邀出席学院毕业典礼，今天我也能够参加，倍感荣幸！
Good afternoon! I’m very glad to be invited to speak here at your commencement ceremony. Although I have not visited STL, I’ve frequently heard your story from Professor Thomas Man. I’m very proud of what you’ve accomplished, and can relate to what you’ve experienced. In the past years, a couple of Justices and Senior Judges had been invited to speak at the commencement ceremony of STL. I feel very much honored as well, as one of them!
三十一年前的毕业季，我也曾端坐在大学礼堂，聆听校长和老师的祝福与嘱咐，遐想自己的人生将与中国的法治进程会产生怎样的同频共振。
Thirty one years ago, when sitting in the college auditorium for my own graduation ceremony, I was immersed in the blessings and warm wishes from our President and faculty, wandering in imaginations of how my life would resonate with China’s rule of law development.
后来发现，我的职业生涯就是用法治力量敲响法槌，用诚实之心撰写判决。纵然看不完的案卷、写不完的文稿、做不完的调研，填满了每个起早贪黑的工作日和很多周末休息日；但更有在新时代开新局的机遇、在新领域谱新篇的使命、在新岗位建新功的责任。
I later realized that my career is about banging the gavel with the power of the rule of law and writing judgments with an honest heart. Endless case files, documents and investigations have taken up countless workdays and even weekends. But it can never outweigh the opportunities of being the trailblazer in a new era, the mission of writing another chapter for a new field, and the responsibility of making due contributions under a new role.
我现在工作的地方叫最高人民法院知识产权法庭，是司法改革的新生事物。
I now work at the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court of China, a newborn of the judicial reform.
作为国家层面知识产权案件上诉审理机制的实现形式，它很年轻，但短短三年半时间里已审理了上万件技术类知识产权和垄断案件，在保障科技创新和维护公平竞争中发挥出独特作用；它很艰苦，靠借人借房办公，有的同事每天上下班要往返100公里，但法庭每个人都乐此不彼。每天早晚上下班打卡，我都会瞩目法庭的庭训—-“创新、精进、智慧、卓越”。今天我想就从这四个词，谈谈我理解的法律人的精神和追求。
Inaugurated on Jan 1, 2019, the court is quite young as a national level judicial organ which primarily hears cases on appeal over intellectual property rights. But in just three and a half years, over ten thousands of cases involving professional technologies and monopolies have been tried in the court, which evidences the unique role of the court in protecting technological innovation and safeguarding fair competition. Right now, the court doesn’t even have its own workplace, and some colleagues have to commute 100 kilometers every day. But everyone who works there are more than happy to work here. Every day in the morning and evening when I clock in and out , I’d stare at the motto of the court “Innovation, Perseverance, Prudence, Preeminence”. And from there, I want to talk about the spirit and pursuit of legal practitioners in my eyes.
一是创新。创新既是在未知领域的敢为人先，也是对习以为常的不破不立。法律人的创新既有在法律有意留白处的挥洒和对规则挂万漏一时的填补，更有在制度范围内突破惯性思维的正面破题。
First is innovation. Innovation is not only pioneering into the uncharted, but also breaking conventions. As legal practitioners, being innovative is not only to be flexible where intentionally left blank by the law and to fill up the holes of rules, but to break through the inertia of thinking within the system.
专利案件技术事实查明是世界性难题，我们牵头建立全国法院技术调查人才库和共享机制，努力缓解法官的技术恐慌。没有德国法上的“假执行”，我们倡导用“一审判决+临时禁令”，实现同样的及时救济效果。管辖异议成为当事人拖延诉讼的工具，我们大力推广上诉卷宗电子移送，让驳回管辖异议的一审法院有条件尝试不间断审理。
Technical facts identification in patent cases is a worldwide conundrum. And we have taken the lead in building a national court technical investigation talent pool and sharing mechanism so that judges can be less plagued by this problem. Without the “provisional execution” in German law, we advocate the use of “first-instance judgment + preliminary injunction” to achieve the same timely relief. Jurisdiction objection has become a tool for parties to delay litigation. We’ve vigorously promoted the electronic transfer of appeal files, so that the court of first instance that has rejected the jurisdiction objection can try uninterrupted trials.
实践证明，以创新方式保护创新，才能真正守助创新。创新之难，不在灵光乍现，而在潜心钻研和勇敢向前。每一个所谓灵光背后，都是艰辛的研究和大胆的探索。
Practice has proved that only by protecting innovation in an innovative way can we truly nurture the soil for innovation. The difficulty of innovation is not in the burst of ideas, but in concentrating on research and bravely moving forward. Because there will be no burst of ideas without strenuous research and bold exploration.
二是精进。精进是精益求精，而非躺平内卷；是直面问题，而非视而不见；是追求完美，而非得过且过。法律人的精进来自良知和匠心，是真正定分止争的自觉，是寻求最佳解决方案和提供最大救济的追求。
Second is perseverance. Perseverance is to work extremely hard for better results instead of doing nothing, to face instead of turning blind eyes to the problem and strive for perfection instead of settling for mediocracy. The diligence of a legal practitioner comes from his conscience and ingenuity. It is the consciousness of truly settling disputes, and it is the pursuit of seeking the best solution and providing the greatest relief.
为让电商平台内经营者赶上“双11”大卖，我们病假中的法官不眠不休耗时26个小时，作出临时恢复链接的反向行为保全裁定。为查清技术特征，恐高的女法官在烈日下站进了挖掘机的铲斗，被举到半空中观察桥梁接缝。看似简单的撤回上诉申请，我们却敏感地发现背后隐藏的涉嫌反垄断法问题的药品专利反向支付协议。
Our judge on sick leave worked for 26 hours and made a reverse act preservation ruling to restore the link temporarily just so that the sellers on e-commerce platforms could participate in the Nov. 11 shopping gala. In order to find out the technical features, our acrophobic female judge stood in the bucket of the excavator under the scorching sun and was lifted into the air to observe the bridge joints. In a seemingly simple withdrawal of appeal application, we spotted the possibility of breaking the anti-monopoly law in a drug patent reverse payment agreement.
精进之难，不在日拱一卒，而在日日拱卒。平淡和坎坷都可以磋磨青年的英气，但消减不了校园浸染的青春时光，淡化不了源自母校的精神滋养，守住初心，汲取力量，就能无往而不胜。
What makes perseverance challenging is the fact that you have to take small steps day by day and every day. The run-of-the-mill work and the ups and downs may wear you down. But it’ll never make less colorful the youthful time spent at school, or less abundant the mental nourishment you have received from your school. Nothing can stop you as long as you stay with your original heart and gain the strength from the inner part of yourself.
三是智慧。智慧是能解难题。法律人的智慧是弥合现实需求与法律路径之间的差异，是化解逻辑推演与经验判断的矛盾，是在看似个个有理和似是而非中寻找衡平持正的答案。
Third is prudence. Prudence is the ability to solve complicated problems. The prudence of legal practitioners is to bridge the gap between actual needs and legal solutions, to resolve the conflicts between logical deduction and experience-based judgement, and to find the balanced and fair explanation in plausible statements and cloaked facts.
多年来多主体实施方法专利被困在直接侵权与间接侵权的理论困境中难以落点，我们就换个角度从固化方法的产品出发寻找救济路径。大型设备技术秘密案件密点纷繁、比对困难，我们就大胆适用优势证据规则，基于设备成套性和技术整体性推定使用全部技术秘密。
For years there’s been no clearcut definition as to whether the implementation of method patents by multi-actor is direct or indirect infringement. So, we started to look for relief from another angle of product by solidifying method. Technical secret cases of large-scale equipment are dense in details and difficult to compare. So we boldly applied the rule of preponderance of evidence, and affirmed that the defendant used all technical secrets based on the presumption of complete sets of equipment and technical integrity.
专利侵权案件中往往伴随着交错进行、釜底抽薪的专利无效程序，周期长、成本高成为权利人长期诟病的维权话题，就在本周，我们在一案中引导当事人针对预设情形自愿作出未来利益的补偿承诺，既平衡双方实体利益，又加快程序推进。
Patent infringement cases are often accompanied by staggered and drastic patent invalidation procedures. The long cycle and high cost of defending their legal rights have long been criticized by rights holders. Just this week, we guided the parties in a case to voluntarily make compensation commitments for future interests in accordance with the preset situation, which not only balances the interests of both parties, but also speeds up the process.
智慧之难，不在于奇技精巧，而在于永不放弃的论证琢磨。拓展眼界、开放思维，问题导向、结果追求，就是开启智慧的不二之门。
The key of prudence doesn’t lie in flaring skills, but in the persistent pondering of arguments and research. You’ll find the way to prudence as long as you’re willing to see more, think openly, focus on the problem and try to get the results you want.
四是卓越。卓越是追求一流。法律人的卓越不仅是要深谙国情，也要有参与国际治理的意识和能力，既秉持善意，又敢于斗争，在合作中平等竞争，在竞争中深化合作。
Four is preeminence. Preeminence is the pursuit of being first-class. The preeminence of legal practitioners is not only to be well acquainted with the national situation, but also to have the awareness and ability to participate in international governance, to uphold goodwill, and dare to fight, competing on an equal footing in cooperation, and deepening cooperation in competition.
法庭审理案件中近一成是涉外案件，我们始终秉持依法平等保护，在“带锁髓内钉”案中因侵权人拒不提交账册，改判全额支持外方权利人2000余万元赔偿请求，越来越多的外国企业选择到中国法院解决知识产权纠纷，我国日益成为国际知识产权诉讼优选地之一。
Nearly 10% of the cases heard by the court are cases concerning foreign parties. We always uphold the principle of equal protection in accordance with the law. In the “Locked Intramedullary Nail” case, the ruling was changed to fully support the foreign rights holder’s claim for compensation of more than 20 million yuan because the infringer refused to submit the account books. More and more foreign enterprises choose to resolve intellectual property disputes in Chinese courts. China has increasingly become one of the preferred places for international intellectual property litigation.
我们也积极为国际知识产权前沿问题贡献中国智慧，标准必要专利许可纠纷裁决国际瞩目，多起药品专利案件入选联合国案例数据库。国内外高度关注法庭设立运行，庭审视频案均观看量近2万次，“香兰素”案仅一条微博话题即被阅读1.5亿次。
We have also actively contributed Chinese wisdom to the international frontier issues of intellectual property rights. The judgement of standard-essential patent licensing disputes has attracted international attention, and a number of drug patent cases have been included in the United Nations case database. The establishment and operation of the court attracted enormous attention at home and abroad. The videos of the court trials have been viewed nearly 20,000 times per case on average. And the “Vanillin” case has been read 150 million times by just one Weibo hashtag.
卓越之难，不在于处处顶尖，而在于孜孜以求。上面这些探索和案例，多非惊天动地，但一个个小切口，累积起来就能撬动起全社会的创造热情和创新活力。持之以恒的每一天，我们都会离卓越更近一点。
The difficulty of preeminence lies not in being at the top everywhere, but in striving for it relentlessly. Most of the above explorations and cases are not ground-breaking. But we rely on the accumulation of such small endeavors to stimulate the creative enthusiasm and innovative vitality of the whole society. Perseverance brings us closer to excellence.
“创新、精进、智慧、卓越”，法庭将之译为“Innovation, Perseverance, Prudence, Preeminence”，简称IPPP，可以说，这是我们法庭人的精神与追求。同时，我想IPPP还可以有另外一种解读，就是Intellectual Property Protection Pioneer，这是我们对法庭的自我定位。期待同学们走出校门，开启创新、精进、智慧、卓越的人生与事业，盼望你们成为先锋的法律人，始终胸怀“国之大者”，将个人命运与国家命运紧紧相连，以奋斗之青春报效青春之国家。
Innovation, Perseverance, Prudence, Preeminence, IPPP in short, is the spirit and pursuit of the court. Meanwhile, I think IPPP can also be interpreted as Intellectual Property Protection Pioneer, which is how we see the court. It’s my earnest hope that, when you leave the campus, you will walk into a life and career of innovation, perseverance, prudence and preeminence and become leading legal practitioners, care about the development of our country and serve the country of youth with the youth of struggle.
祝福每一位同学行稳致远！谢谢大家！
Wish you walk steady for far-reaching! Thank you!
