This year marks the beginning of the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, with China's economy showing resilience and positive growth. High-quality development is the key principle of the new era, and the rule of law is the best foundation for a business-friendly environment. The "15th Five-Year Plan" outlines the need to build a law-based and credit-driven economy. To continuously explore how courts at all levels are supporting a strong start to the "15th Five-Year Plan" and serving high-quality development, the Supreme People's Court's News Bureau has organized a "Media Frontline Observation" interview activity.

The first stop of this activity was Guangxi, China's "bridgehead" for openness and cooperation with ASEAN. Journalists were invited into courts at three levels, industrial parks, border ports, and project sites to feel the pulse of the rule of law driving Guangxi's maritime development and opening-up.

Inserting a nail tip, slicing the side along the shell to rotate, and removing the cap of the passion fruit. The golden, juicy flesh emits a rich honey fragrance, and it is smooth on the palate without any sourness. "I ate two in a row," "I ate three," the journalists remarked, as they moved from hesitation to enjoyment while tasting plates of passion fruit, exclaiming that this fruit could be eaten raw. On July 21, a reporter from Dindin News followed the Supreme People's Court into the Qinzhou Intermediate People's Court. During the investigation, the locally grown "Qinguo No. 9" golden passion fruit caught the journalists' attention.

Previously known as "Qinmi No. 9," the "Qinguo No. 9" passion fruit, with its excellent taste, changed the perception that passion fruit must be sweetened with sugar for drinking. As it gained market recognition, it became entangled in an intellectual property dispute, which also turned into a classic case of judicial protection for IP rights. During the investigation, reporters learned that in recent years, Guangxi courts have properly handled a series of cases involving new plant variety rights, such as the "Qinguo No. 9" passion fruit and the "Tianguinuo 932" corn variety breeding material infringement cases. These efforts have maintained the order of seed industry innovation and provided strong judicial guarantees for optimizing the rule-of-law business environment and promoting high-quality economic and social development.

Defining the Boundary Between Legal Attributes and Contractual Obligations

It is understood that "Qinguo No. 9" was co-developed by the Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Guangxi Qinci Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., and is a superior new variety independently bred in the Qinnan District of Qinzhou. A company in Zhangzhou, without authorization, produced, propagated, and sold the variety, and publicly claimed that it had been bred by them. In July 2025, the court determined that the actions of the Zhangzhou company constituted unfair competition, protecting the innovative achievements of the breeders and allowing farmers to confidently cultivate high-quality passion fruit. As China's industries transform and upgrade, a number of new crop varieties with excellent germplasm have emerged. As new plant varieties enter the market, intellectual property rights have become the lifeline for enterprises. Judicial power protects the IP security of companies like "Qinguo No. 9" and also maintains the stability and order of the market.

In a case involving software code, the Guangxi court precisely defined the boundary between the legal attributes and contractual obligations of "software project application source code" and "general underlying framework source code." This has served as a guide for regulating the order of the software development market. It is understood that companies like "You Company" commissioned "Nanning Xin Company" to develop the "Youyitong Mall" project. The parties agreed to deliver "all source code" and not to "encrypt or package it." After the project went live, a dispute arose over whether the underlying framework code should be delivered. The court ruled that the underlying framework code was the result of the developer's years of technical accumulation, a general-purpose technical asset, and not custom-made for this project. The purpose of the You Company's contract was to obtain an independently operable, maintainable, and upgradeable online trading platform, not to acquire the developer's general-purpose software development tools.

Resolving Dilemmas for Research and Production

Besides being rich in passion fruit, Guangxi is a premium production area for fresh-eating corn in China, holding one-third of the country's waxy corn germplasm resources. Nanning's "Agricultural Company" is one of the leading enterprises specializing in the research and development of fresh-eating corn varieties. A research group from a university in Guangxi, dedicated to sweet-waxy corn breeding, spent years successfully developing two breakthrough corn backbone inbred lines, Bw2 and H5. These two materials, like "chips," carry unique sweet-waxy genes and are key breeding materials for cultivating high-quality fresh-eating corn varieties. In 2006, Professor Wu, who was about to retire from the research group, handed over a batch of breeding materials, including Bw2 and H5, to the Agricultural Company for commercial breeding and product development. The Agricultural Company formed a professional breeding team and, based on the materials provided by the professor, developed corn varieties like "Tianguinuo 932," which obtained national new plant variety rights and became "hot sellers" in domestic and international markets. Because Professor Wu handed over the breeding materials without the university's consent, the Guangxi university filed a lawsuit in the Nanning Intermediate People's Court, demanding that the Agricultural Company and related collaborators immediately cease infringement and compensate for economic losses. The court of first instance determined that the Bw2 and H5 breeding materials and their genetic information were trade secrets of the university. The Agricultural Company's unauthorized acquisition and use constituted infringement. The court ordered it to immediately cease use and compensate the university for economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling 1.5 million yuan. The three highly anticipated corn varieties faced the prospect of being removed from the market, and the in-development varieties based on the disputed breeding materials would also be invalidated, creating a scientific and economic dilemma. In July 2025, the Agricultural Company appealed to the Guangxi Higher People's Court, while also suing Professor Wu and other research group members for providing the disputed breeding materials, demanding they bear infringement liability and compensate for economic losses of 500,000 yuan. A single seed infringement dispute escalated into a series of lawsuits.

Judge Zhou Mian, a member of the collegial panel hearing the series of cases, stated that intellectual property must be strictly protected. However, if the original judgment was simply upheld, it would mean trapping the efforts of two generations of breeders over more than a decade, the R&D funds invested by the company, and the research results that have become productive forces within a single court ruling. "We must not simply shelve the hard-won new varieties. We must transform scientific research achievements into real productivity for the benefit of the people," said Liang Yuekui, a member of the Party Leadership Group and Vice President of the Guangxi Higher People's Court, emphasizing the need to substantively resolve historical issues arising from the university-enterprise cooperation model of a specific period. After clarifying the boundaries of rights and responsibilities on core legal issues such as contract terms, ownership of job-related technical achievements, and trade secret infringement, Judge Zhou Mian's collegial panel initiated mediation. Using a "face-to-face" approach, they communicated continuously with both sides, facilitating the parties to set aside their disputes and build a long-term cooperation mechanism. In March of this year, both parties reached a mediation agreement. The university permanently licensed the Agricultural Company to use the Bw2 and H5 breeding materials for producing and operating the three corn varieties, including "Tianguinuo 932." The Agricultural Company paid the university a cooperation licensing fee. At the same time, the Agricultural Company withdrew its lawsuit against Professor Wu and the research group members, and the university waived its right to pursue other claims against the company.

Dindin News, Reporters Nie Hui, Zhou Rui