Category Archives: inter-ministerial joint conferences

artificial intelligence, inter-ministerial joint conferences, judicial documents

Supreme People’s Court’s AI Policy Document: the Backstory

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April, 2026 IP Week Press Conference, with SPC VP Tao Kaiyuan, IP Court head He Zonglin, and #3 Civil Division head Li Jian, plus SPC spokesperson Ji Zhongbiao
September, 2026 AI Policy Document Press Conference, SPC Ji Zhongbiao, spokesperson; Li Jian, head of the #3 Civil Division; Justice Tao Kaiyuan; Zhou Jiahai, head of the Research Office; Si Yanli, deputy head of the Research Office

 

 

 

 

 

 

In an historic first, the Supreme People’s Court’s (SPC) initial policy document devoted to adjudicating AI-related disputes, entitled Opinions on Adjudicating Disputes Involving Artificial Intelligence in Accordance with the Law (最高人民法院关于依法审理涉人工智能纠纷案件的意见), has become the focus of international attention.   (See Jeremy Daum’s summary here). At a press conference held during the 2026 Intellectual Property Week (on April 20, pictured), the SPC’s leading intellectual property judges revealed that the institution was drafting an artificial intelligence policy document  (意见) (“The Supreme People’s Court is currently focusing on drafting opinions concerning properly handling disputes involving artificial intelligence in accordance with the law, striving to promote the healthy and orderly development of artificial intelligence in a beneficial, safe, and fair direction” 最高人民法院正在抓紧起草关于依法妥善审理涉人工智能纠纷案件的意见，努力推动人工智能朝着有益、安全、公平的方向健康有序发展).  For those not familiar with the taxonomy of SPC documents, “opinions” (意见) are generally a type of policy document, as I further discussed here. The “backstory” to the AI Policy Document, that is why and how it was drafted, is typical of other SPC policy documents about which I have written, but is not well known and provides insights into the operation of the SPC.

Impetus for the AI Policy

There were both political and practical reasons for drafting the AI Policy document.  The political reasons are anchored by guidance from Xi Jinping.

“The more rapidly artificial intelligence technology develops, the more correctly we must anchor it in the direction of being positive, benevolent, and beneficial to mankind; the more precisely we must grasp the scale of supervision and governance; and the more promptly we must improve measures to prevent it from getting out of control.” General Secretary Xi Jinping

The political imperative for the drafting of the AI Policy Document includes the quotation above, other guidance by Xi, and the importance placed by the Party Center on the healthy development of artificial intelligence.  Accordingly, .  Accordingly, the Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan (国民经济和社会发展第十五个五年规划纲要) states that it is necessary to “improve the laws, regulations, policies, application standards, and ethical guidelines in the field of artificial intelligence.”

The practical imperative was the increasing number of cases involving the use of artificial intelligence and the need to provide consistent guidance, in the absence of comprehensive legislation on artificial intelligence.

SPC’s Drafting Group

The decision to draft the AI Policy Document, as I wrote previously, would have been based on the following analysis: “if the impact [of a new strategy or initiative] is broad-ranging and significant enough, SPC leaders might take the view that it is appropriate to issue a policy document (about which more is said below), to clarify related new policies and provide various types of guidance and information.”  As for why the SPC leaders did not recommend the drafting of a judicial interpretation (司法解释), as I have previously commented, those documents are intended to remain in place for an extended period, and therefore the process of drafting them is often slow.  Therefore, a policy document (意见) was deemed more appropriate.

The SPC established a drafting group for the AI Policy Document in 2025, led by several senior staff in the SPC’s Research Office, with a major contribution from the #3 Civil Division, which focuses on intellectual property.  The Research Office led the drafting because the issues addressed in the AI Policy Document are broader than intellectual property.  The identity of the leaders of the drafting group can be surmised from the participants in the press conference releasing the AI Policy Document (in the photo above) as well as the named authors of the  “understanding and application” article. This practice is consistent with the drafting of other policy documents that involved multiple institutions within the SPC, as mentioned earlier. Their approach is typical of the drafting process for policy documents that I have described elsewhere.

The drafters first engaged in desk research and then sought views from local courts, relevant government institutions, industry, and selected experts and scholars, but not the general public, as is consistent with my earlier detailed description. One of the articles in SPC official media provided the following details:

Building on a review of policy documents (涉人工智能政策文件) and laws and regulations related to artificial intelligence, the group conducted systematic and in-depth research on key and difficult issues related to artificial intelligence in judicial practice. The group systematically reviewed frequently asked questions about artificial intelligence on the Court Answers Platform (法答网), as well as the judgment rules of relevant cases in the People’s Court Case Database（人民法院案例库. The group also tracked and analyzed foreign legislation and judicial practices related to artificial intelligence and widely and fully solicited opinions from local courts, industry representatives, experts and scholars, and relevant government departments.

Inter-ministerial Joint Conference on Building a Powerful Nation of Intellectual Property Rights and AI

The drafting of the AI Policy Document was likely coordinated with certain members of the Inter-ministerial Joint Conference on Building a Powerful Nation of Intellectual Property Rights. The 2026 and 2025 Plans for Promoting the Building of a Powerful Intellectual Property Nation, which are usually issued during China’s IP Week, contain nearly identical language relating to AI:

2026: 19. Explore and refine intellectual property protection rules for new fields and business formats—such as big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain—and improve rules regarding open-source intellectual property. The Central Propaganda Department, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, the Supreme People’s Court, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the National Intellectual Property Administration are responsible for their respective duties.

2025: 23. Explore and improve the intellectual property protection rules for new fields and new formats such as big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. Improve the intellectual property protection rules in the Internet field. (The Central Propaganda Department, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, the Supreme People’s Court, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the National Intellectual Property Administration are responsible for their respective duties)

As I wrote over a year ago, the Inter-ministerial Joint Conference on Building a Powerful Intellectual Property Rights Nation (Inter-ministerial Joint IP Conference), of which the SPC is a member, coordinates national efforts to build a strong country in intellectual property rights and organizes the implementation of the strategy of building a strong country in intellectual property rights.

The quotations above are from the annual plan for building a powerful nation in intellectual property rights that the Inter-ministerial Joint IP Conference formulates. Those annual plans contain targets that the SPC has agreed with the other constituent institutions, after inter-institutional discussions and coordination at a staff level and related approval within the SPC. The SPC is committed to those targets through inter-institutional agreement, as reported here.

So it seems likely that the other member institutions of the Inter-ministerial Joint IP Conference had been informed that the SPC was drafting the AI Policy document and that the relevant departments that the SPC consulted included the Central Propaganda [Publicity] Department (中央宣传部), the Central Cyberspace Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the National Intellectual Property Administration. I surmise that the SPC also consulted with the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People’s Congress, to ensure that the institutions shared common views.

Review and Approval of the AI Policy Document

After repeated revisions, the draft of the AI Policy Document was submitted to the SPC judicial committee (审判委员会 adjudication committee) for review and approval, leaving aside certain issues on which internal consensus had not been reached, including the copyrightability of AI-generated content and the fair use of training data.

While some policy documents are approved by the SPC’s Party Group, others are approved by the judicial committee.  As this policy document focuses on substantive legal issues rather than broader policy, the decision was presumably taken to route approval to the judicial committee.   As I have written previously, the usual practice is that an accompanying background paper/explanation (说明) is submitted, to enable committee members to understand the implications of each provision from a policy (political) and legal viewpoint. It can be surmised from an official article that the judicial committee approved the document in principle but required the drafters to address certain issues, such as the protection of the personal rights of the deceased and the punishment of crimes committed using artificial intelligence.  The latter provision does not create a new crime but refers to situations in which existing legislation permits such punishment.  The final version addressed those issues and left open room for additional guidance through the People’s Court Case Database and the Court Answers Platform.  As I have previously written, official SPC policy is for those to provide an integrated guidance product.

Timing of the Release of the AI Policy Document

Although none of the official commentary so said, I surmise that the release of the AI Policy Document on 7 September 2026  was intended to coordinate with General Secretary Xi Jinping’s official visit to the United States, where one of the topics under discussion was the regulation of artificial intelligence.

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Many thanks to a highly knowledgeable person for his comments on an earlier draft of this post.

 

court reforms, inter-ministerial joint conferences, Petitioning

Petitioning and the Supreme People’s Court

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As one of my research assistants, Liu Yanmu (刘严木), discovered, each activity of the President of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) made public illustrates his unique role and the institution’s multiple roles. One recent example is the July 21 (2026) forum on substantively resolving disputes, focusing on petitioning (标本兼治 综合治理 深入推进人民法院涉诉信访工作法治化).  It also signals that one part of the SPC’s work is responsibility for “litigation-related”   petitioning (涉诉信访), petitioning related to the work of the courts. The SPC’s responsibility (accountability) and that of its leaders link to related accountability regulations.  That means the institution is responsible in two ways. If petitioners petition the SPC headquarters or, more often, one of the circuit courts, the SPC is responsible for properly handling the matter, including possibly resolving the underlying problem.  Additionally, the SPC is responsible for guiding lower courts in dealing with petitioners. The forum participants, forum content, and repeated appearance of petitioning in recent judicial reform programs are significant.

Participants

Although I cannot decode the significance of all participants in this forum, the identities of the two senior SPC judges and two commentators are important.   The two SPC judges are Qian Xiaochen (钱晓晨), the Director of the SPC’s Case Filing Division and Chen Xueyong (陈学勇),  Deputy Director of the Second Circuit, in Shenyang.  Among the many duties of the SPC’s Case Filing Division, according to the Chinese version of the official website, is guiding litigation-related petitioning work (涉诉信访) of the courts.  Multiple official documents also so require.   Chen Xueyong, as the deputy director of the #2 Circuit Court, is stationed in Shenyang and is responsible for overseeing the appropriate handling of petitioners in that circuit.  It is understood that the #2 Circuit Court still receives a relatively large number of petitioners, particularly compared to the wealthier First and Third Circuits.  In June (2026), the #2 Circuit Court hosted a national conference entitled “‘Disputes End with Me’: The Unity of Front-End and Back-End, Explicit and Implicit Achievements (“纠纷止于我”：末端与前端、显绩与潜绩的统一), much of which related to handling petitions.

The July 21 forum also included two commentators from two institutions that coordinate or are concerned about petitioning policy nationally: Ms. Jin Yanli (金艳丽), deputy head of the Office of the Central Petitioning Joint Conference (中央信访联席办副主任) and deputy director/Party group member of the State Letters and Visits Bureau (家信访局党组成员副局长) and Mr. Ji Tao (吉涛),  bureau chief within the Central Political-Legal Commission (中央政法委八局局长). The Joint Conference (see my earlier posts for information about joint conferences) is mentioned in the 2022 Petitioning Regulations.  Under the 2023 institutional reforms, the State Letters and Visits Bureau became an institution directly under the State Council, under the unified leadership of the Central Social [Society] Work Department (see this article for one view of the Department’s work).

Timing

It is unclear whether the timing was linked to the July (2026)  issuance of a Party and State policy document on social (society) work in the New Era (关于加强新时代社会工作的意见), or whether the forum was long-planned.  The full text of the document is not available, but the detailed summary includes  phrases on “deepening the reform of the petitioning system, promoting the rule of law in petitioning work, and continuously advancing the root-cause governance of petitioning issues and the resolution of long-standing cases.”

Judicial Reform and Petitioning

Petitioning has appeared in at least the last three judicial reform plan outlines.  The current judicial reform plan, which draws on similar provisions in the last two plans and is far more detailed, provides:

(15) Deepening the prevention and resolution of petitioning related to litigation. In light of the work of the people’s courts, institutions and mechanisms for comprehensively promoting the legal footing for work related to petitioning shall be improved. The combination of visits and investigations, with mediation given priority, shall be upheld, and coordination and linkage between mediation and work related to petitioning shall be promoted. The working mechanism for substantially resolving petitioning involving litigation shall be improved. Introduction procedures, public hearings, assistance and relief, and other methods shall be comprehensively utilized, and the mechanism for the participation of NPC deputies, CPPCC members, lawyers, and others in handling public complaints shall be enhanced. Responses to each petition shall be deepened, and the efficiency and quality of responses shall be improved. The separation between litigation and petitioning shall be further promoted. The reviewers, standards, and procedures for recording the termination of petitions involving litigation shall be refined, and the mechanisms for termination and transfer shall be improved. The organic integration of receiving petitions and incorporating petitions into case handling, supervision through the judicial hierarchy, judicial aid, and other work shall be promoted to facilitate case resolution and dispute settlement, thereby strengthening the source control of petitions related to litigation. Inappropriate acts such as persistent complaint visits, disruptive complaint visits, and profit-seeking through public complaints shall be dealt with in accordance with the law, and guidance shall be provided to ensure lawful and reasonable presentation of demands.

I surmise that the June 2026 forum in Shenyang was intended to develop related measures.

Content

Although detailed guidance for judges was not set out in the press release on the July forum, the June 2026 report signalled how petitions should be handled.  It is consistent with policies directed at preventing and reducing disputes:

  • examine and resolve deep-seated issues reflected in petitions and complaints, thereby improving the quality and efficiency of first and second instance trials [and avoiding petitions from arising];
  • link higher and lower courts and court divisions handling substantive matters (业务部门) as well as SPC circuit courts and the courts within their circuits;
  • implement mechanisms for analyzing the underlying issues and liaising with court divisions handling substantive matters;
  • improve the linkage with comprehensive governance centers and other relevant institutions,  and form a joint force for the prevention and resolution of conflicts and disputes;
  • deploy trial management indicators to spur judges to resolve petitioning disputes.

For those interested in a more detailed analysis of issues related to petitioning at the #2 Circuit Court, I recommend (retired) Justice Hu Yunteng’s 2019 article.

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Many thanks to one of my former students for her thoughtful comments on an earlier draft of this post.

intellectual property, inter-ministerial joint conferences

 The Supreme People’s Court and the 2025 plan for Promoting the Building of a Powerful Intellectual Property Nation

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Meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Committee at which the Plan was approved

On 7 May 2025, the  Office of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference for the Building of a Powerful Intellectual Property Nation ( Inter-Ministerial IP Office) issued this year’s plan (Chinese /English) for promoting the building of a powerful intellectual property nation. (Many thanks to Adam Wininger and his colleagues affiliated with the China IP Law blog for the English translation of the plan itself.) The Inter-Ministerial IP Office circulated the plan with the following notice:

Notice of the Office of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference for the Building of a Powerful Intellectual Property Nationon the Issuance of the 2025 Plan for Promoting the Building of a Powerful Intellectual Property Nation
(National Intellectual Property Joint Office [2025] No. 5)

To all member units of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference for the Building of a Powerful Intellectual Property Nation, the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the State Administration of Taxation, the Financial Regulatory Administration, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the National International Development Cooperation Agency, the State Administration of State Administration of State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the National Medical Products Administration, the China Association for Science and Technology, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China:
With the approval of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference on Building a Powerful Intellectual Property Nation, the ” 2025 Intellectual Property Rights Promotion Plan ” is now issued. Please organize its implementation conscientiously.

Office of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference on Building an a Powerful Intellectual Property Nation
April 29, 2025

The issuance of this plan gives me an opportunity to revisit one aspect of formal interactions between the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) and other institutions that I discussed in this blog post in 2021–inter-ministerial joint conferences.  As I mentioned in the post, the intellectual property inter-ministerial joint conference system is quite transparent.  In contrast to other inter-ministerial joint conferences, it has its own website.  This brief post will highlight a few recent developments before analyzing what the plan means for the SPC.

Development #1–Since 2021, the membership of the joint conference has expanded and its name has changed, linked with the issuance of the Outline for Building a Powerful Intellectual Property Nation (2021-2035).  The Party Center and State Council approved the expansion of the joint conference to 29 members.  Previously, the State Council had approved the expansion of joint conference members.  Perhaps the Party Center (党中央) and State Council approved the notice together because several Party institutions are involved.  This notice on the establishment of the expanded joint conference is likely derived from the official approval, specifying that the joint conference’s responsibilities are to :

coordinate the national efforts to build a strong country in intellectual property rights, and organize the implementation of the strategy of building a strong country in intellectual property rights. Strengthen macro-guidance on the work of building a strong country in intellectual property rights; study major policies and guidelines for strengthening the building of a strong country in intellectual property rights, and formulate an annual promotion plan for the building of a strong country in intellectual property rights; guide, supervise, and inspect the implementation of relevant policies and measures, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of work; coordinate and resolve major issues in the building of a strong country in intellectual property rights; and complete other matters assigned by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council.

The SPC is a member of the joint conference, which is convened by the head of the National Intellectual Property Administration and the person in charge of copyright work at the Central Propaganda (Publicity) Department. The approval provides that the joint conference has an office located in the National Intellectual Property Administration to administer the work of the Joint Conference.  The head of the National Intellectual Property Administration directs the office, with two deputies, one from that administration and the other from the Central Publicity Department.   Justice Tao Kaiyuan is the designated liaison person from the SPC.   My understanding is that normal liaison work occurs at the staff level, with some staff members of the SPC’s #3 Civil Division meeting with their counterparts at other member institutions to coordinate and promote policies as well as to establish related mechanisms, subject to relevant leadership approval. The plan provides insights into near-term developments in intellectual property law.

Implications for the SPC

The plan allocates 13 specific tasks to the SPC, among which are:

9. Promote the revision of relevant judicial interpretations of the Trademark Law and Copyright Law. (Supreme People’s Court is responsible);…

23. Explore and improve the intellectual property protection rules for new fields and new formats such as big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. Improve the intellectual property protection rules in the Internet field. (The Central Propaganda Department, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, the Supreme People’s Court, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the National Intellectual Property Administration are responsible for their respective duties)
24. Accelerate the improvement of judicial judgment rules for intellectual property rights in new technologies, new fields, and new formats, and judgment rules for e-commerce platform competition cases, and explore judicial rules for big data competition protection. (Supreme People’s Court is responsible)…

II. Strengthen intellectual property protection
(I) Strengthen judicial protection of intellectual property
30. Issue the “Opinions of the Supreme People’s Court on Serving and Safeguarding Scientific and Technological Innovation with High-quality Trials” and publish typical cases. (The Supreme People’s Court is responsible) [mentioned in this post]
31. Improve the national level intellectual property case appeal mechanism and strengthen the construction of a professional trial system. (The Supreme People’s Court is responsible)
32. Adhere to strict protection, improve and fully implement the punitive compensation system for infringement. Strengthen the overall coordination of batch litigation and increase the crackdown on manufacturers and other sources of infringement. (The Supreme People’s Court is responsible)
33. Formulate the “Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in Handling Criminal Cases of Intellectual Property Rights Infringement”. (The Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate are responsible)….

I understand this document to have multiple implications for the SPC.  First, the matters for which the SPC listed are targets that the SPC has agreed with the other constituent institutions, after inter-institutional discussions and coordination at a staff level and related approval within the SPC.  Second, I surmise that the targets are binding on the SPC through inter-institutional agreement, as reported here.  Therefore, the ones that are listed in this document are on the work plan of the SPC for this year and will involve multiple institutions within the SPC.   Third, it can be seen that for some matters, the SPC is solely responsible, while for others, the SPC works with the SPP or multiple institutions.  Third, it is likely that the SPC will be involved in other matters in which the SPC is not listed as a responsible institution. One of many examples is item 45, “continue to strengthen the protection of seed industry intellectual property rights,” for which the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs is responsible. As I wrote in a recent post, the SPC has a memorandum of understanding with that ministry to improve the protection of seed intellectual property rights.  Finally, this document provides insights into the complex and poorly understood topic of inter-institutional arrangements in China, their operation, and the role of the SPC in them.  As the introductory notice flags, multiple non-members of the inter-ministerial joint committee are notified so that their work can be harmonized with this plan.

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Many thanks to a knowledgeable person for his comments on an earlier draft of this post.