Apr. 29 – China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) released the “White Paper on Intellectual Property Rights Protection (2012)” (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Paper’) on April 22, which summarizes the progress China has made in promoting and implementing the national intellectual property strategy in 2012. Detailed information can be found below.
Overall Situation
In 2012, courts in China strengthened the judicial protection of intellectual property rights (IPR). As a result, the number of intellectual property-related cases has increased substantially. Specifically:
The number of civil cases received over IPR issues amounted to 87,419 in 2012, up 46 percent year-on-year.
Among which, there have been
- 53,848 copyright cases
- 19,815 trademark cases
- 9,680 patent cases
- 46 cases involving technology agreements
- 1,123 cases involving unfair competition
- 2,207 cases involving other intellectual property disputes
Moreover, courts have concluded 1,429 foreign-related IPR civil cases and 613 cases involving parties from Hong Kong, Taiwan or Macao.
The number of administrative cases received over IPR issues amounted to 2,928 in 2012, up 20.35 percent year-on year.
Among the administrative cases, the ones involving foreign parties or parties from Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan took up a large proportion. The number of such cases reached 1,349 in 2012, representing 46.53 percent of the total concluded IPR-related administrative cases.
The number of criminal cases received over IPR issues amounted to 13,104 in 2012, up 130 percent year-on-year
In order to prevent infringement on intellectual property, courts in the country have stepped up criminal enforcement regarding intellectual property cases. Last year, local courts all over China handled 13,104 IPR-related criminal cases. Furthermore, more than 60,000 suspects were detained in the 43,000 concluded cases relating to IPR infringement and the production and selling of substandard commodities, involving a total value of RMB11.3 billion.
