China made rulings on 40 per cent more intellectual property cases in 2018 - a key area of tension in relations with US
- Chief Justice Zhou Qiang says 288,000 first instance IP-related cases were concluded in 2018 – up 41.8 per cent from last year
- It’s a key area of tension in trade relations between the US and China
China’s top judge said the nation’s courts handled more intellectual property rights cases last year – a key area of tension in trade relations between Washington and Beijing.
Zhou Qiang, chief justice of the Supreme People’s Court, said in his work report delivered at the annual legislative sessions on Tuesday that 288,000 first instance IP-related cases had been concluded in 2018 – up 41.8 per cent from a year ago.
It was the second consecutive year the number of IPR cases processed by the courts went up by more than 40 per cent. In 2017, Chinese courts handled 213,480 such cases – a rise of 40.4 per cent from the previous year.
Meanwhile, in a separate work report on Tuesday, Zhang Jun, the procurator general of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, highlighted the number of IPR-related prosecutions.
Zhang told the National People’s Congress that 8,325 people had been prosecuted in 2018 for acts including infringement of patent and trademark rights and trade secrets – a rise of 16.3 per cent from the previous year.
The jump in the number of cases indicated a greater awareness of protecting intellectual property rights, according to Fang Jianwei, a partner with Zhong Lun Law Firm in Beijing.
