SPC Issues its First Guiding Opinions Addressing AI Dispute Adjudication

On 7 September 2026, the Supreme People's Court of China (SPC) released its Opinions on Adjudicating Disputes Involving Artificial Intelligence in Accordance with Law during a press conference. The Opinions are SPC's first adjudication guidance establishing rules on substantive adjudication and litigation procedures specific for AI-related disputes.

In providing guidance for courts' adjudication of AI disputes, the Opinions are based on existing laws including the Civil Code, Cybersecurity Law, Data Security Law, Copyright Law, Anti-Unfair Competition Law, Personal Information Protection Law, and Civil Procedure Law in the light of actual circumstances of the courts' judicial work. The Opinions comprise 24 articles in five sections:

Section I (Articles 1-2) defines the guiding philosophy and fundamental principles for adjudicating AI disputes;

Section II (Articles 3-11) clarifies the principles for liability attribution in AI-related infringements as well as liabilities in disputes involving personality rights, personal information rights, consumer rights, provider of generative AI service, AI product, autonomous driving and driver-assistance vehicles, etc.;

Section III (Articles 12-16) provides rules for adjudication of AI-related IP disputes, specifically in relation to acts of IP infringement involving AI, liability of parties involved in AI-related open source software, patent granting and validity confirmation for AI-related inventions, liability for breach of contracts involving AI technology, and data usage involving AI;

Section IV (Articles 17-20) relates to ascertainment of facts of AI disputes and examination of evidence in AI disputes, regulation of acts that disrupt the judicial order such as improper collection of evidence or submission of false materials using AI, and criminally liable AI-implemented offences; and

Section V (Articles 21-24) advocates leveraging diversified mechanisms and multi-sector coordination in solving AI disputes, strengthening judicial supervision and the use of guiding cases, and enhancement of inter-departmental collaboration as well as international judicial exchange and cooperation.

The Opinions address topics of widespread public concern such as AI face-swapping and voice cloning, AI hallucination, doxxing, big data price discrimination, autonomous driving, and model training, while in respect of issues where a consensus has yet to be reached such as copyrightability of AI-generated content and using others' works without permission to train large-scale AI models, leave room for further development until conditions are ripe for formulation of clear guidelines.