Urgent IP Injunctions in China: Prepare the Conduct, Harm and Security File

By Pan Jianxing · Published 11 October 2026

A suspected infringer's exhibition opens tomorrow, or a recipient is about to disclose confidential technical material. An overseas rights holder may need a court order controlling conduct before the full dispute can be decided. In mainland Chinese IP litigation, this requires a focused application for conduct preservation, often described in English as an interim injunction.

Urgency does not remove the need to identify the right, the respondent and the conduct to be restrained. Prepare those questions together with the harm evidence, security and subsequent litigation plan. A complaint, warning letter or platform request is not itself a court order.

State exactly what the court is being asked to prevent

The Supreme People's Court's Provisions on Conduct Preservation in Intellectual Property Disputes, Fa Shi [2018] No. 21, require an application and supporting evidence. Article 4 addresses the parties, requested measure and duration, factual and legal grounds, explanation of harm, and security information. Draft an order that identifies the actual activity and can be understood by the people expected to comply.

For an exhibition, for example, establish the event, dates, respondent's participation and identified products rather than merely asserting that counterfeiting is widespread. For a disclosure concern, identify the information, the threatened disclosure and the source of that knowledge. These are examples of evidence planning, not claims that either scenario automatically satisfies the legal test.

Distinguish conduct preservation from preserving evidence or securing property. Article 19 requires different preservation requests to be examined separately. Stopping an activity will not necessarily preserve a disappearing webpage, and securing evidence does not itself prohibit future sales. Counsel should coordinate the requested measures and their execution sequence.

Explain why waiting would cause the identified harm

Articles 6 and 10 address urgency and harm that is difficult to remedy. Examples include imminent unlawful disclosure of trade secrets and infringement at time-sensitive exhibitions. Supply the chronology showing when the threat emerged, what is expected to happen and why ordinary proceedings would not address the immediate problem.

Support commercial assertions with specific records. An event announcement can establish dates; correspondence can show a threatened release; product and distribution records may explain the scope of an imminent launch. Distinguish documented facts from a forecast, and explain the basis of the forecast. An adjective such as devastating is not a substitute for showing the likely harm.

Address any delay openly. Record when the business discovered the conduct, what it investigated and why the present event changes the risk. Do not create an artificial recent discovery date to make an application appear urgent.

Prepare the merits and proportionality analysis

Under Article 7, the court considers the factual and legal basis, stability of the right, harm without relief, comparative harm to the respondent and public interest. A certificate alone does not answer all those questions. Assemble the rights documents, enforcement authority and a clear comparison between the protected subject matter and challenged conduct.

Disclose relevant challenges to the right and known ownership issues. Article 8 expressly includes invalidation, cancellation and ownership disputes in the stability assessment. Counsel should assess right-specific requirements, including the additional report or decision requirements in Article 9 for utility-model or design patent applications.

Consider whether the requested restriction reaches unrelated products or activity. Explain why its scope is necessary and how a narrower measure would or would not address the harm. Give counsel the information needed to assess likely disruption to the respondent and third parties, not only the applicant's commercial objective.

Arrange security and court handling in advance

Article 11 requires security in accordance with law and links its amount to potential respondent losses from implementing the measure. Additional security may be required if those losses could exceed the existing amount. Identify the proposed security arrangement early and confirm its acceptability with the court through counsel; a budget approval inside the company is not security furnished to the court.

The court ordinarily hears from both sides before ordering conduct preservation, subject to the exceptions in Article 5, including urgency or possible interference with execution. Do not promise an overseas management team a proceeding without notice. Prepare a coherent file that remains usable if the respondent is asked to answer it quickly.

Track the ruling and the next procedural deadline

Article 104 of the Civil Procedure Law as amended in 2023 governs urgent pre-action preservation. It requires security and a ruling within 48 hours after the court accepts the application. This is not a promise of an order within 48 hours of first contacting a lawyer or emailing documents. If no lawsuit or arbitration is commenced in accordance with law within 30 days after the court takes the measure, the court must lift it.

Record the operative ruling, the implementation date and any specified duration. Assign responsibility for the substantive filing and monitor compliance using lawfully collected evidence. A preservation ruling is an interim procedural measure, not the final determination that infringement occurred.

Article 108 of the current Civil Procedure Law provides compensation liability for losses caused by an erroneous preservation application. The 2018 IP provisions contain older cross-references to that law, so use the current numbering rather than copying those references into a new filing. Assess the risk before applying and keep the merits file under review.

For an urgent assessment, contact Pan Jianxing with the threatened conduct, event time, right relied on and available evidence. Sensitive technical material can follow through an agreed channel after the initial conflict check. A clear timeline allows counsel to distinguish an actionable emergency from a matter requiring further evidence first.

Pan Jianxing
China-qualified lawyer · Partner, 北京市长安律师事务所
Beijing & Shenzhen
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