The Supreme People's Court of China held a press conference during the World Intellectual Property Day Promotion Week on April 26, during which it released the The Status of Intellectual Property Judicial Protection in Chinese Courts (2024) and typical cases of intellectual property rights in Chinese courts in 2024. Key data on intellectual property cases are extracted as follows(Figure 1).

(Figure 1)

In 2024, China’s courts received 529370 new IPR cases (marking a year-on-year decrease of 2.67%); concluded 543911 cases (marking a year-on-year increase of 0.001%). The cases include: 449923 newly accepted IPR civil cases of first instance, and 457315 concluded cases, marking a decrease of 2.65% and 0.65% respectively. The proportion of new types of civil cases received is shown in Figure 2.

30486 newly accepted IPR civil cases of second instance were received, and 32055 cases were concluded.

(Figure 2)

20849 IPR cases of first instance of administrative litigation were received (marking an increase of 1.29%), and 27745 cases were concluded (marking an increase of 24.19%). The proportion of newly received administrative case types is shown in Figure 3.

11666 IPR cases of second instance of administrative litigation were received (marking an increase of 16.04%), and 10874 cases were concluded (marking an increase of 17.44%). Among them, 9420 original judgments were upheld, 1091 were revised, 2 were remanded for retrial, 207 were withdrawn, 4 were mediated, and 150 were others.

(Figure 3)

9120 IPR criminal cases of first instance were newly received (marking an increase of 24.34%), and 9003 cases were concluded (marking an increase of 29.22%). The proportion of newly received criminal case types is shown in Figure 4.

1112 new IPR criminal cases of second instance were received, and 1068 cases were concluded.

(Figure 4)

In 2024, the Supreme People's Court concluded 24,979 trademark administrative cases of first instance; 124,918 trademark civil cases of first instance; 31 cases were identified as constituting monopolies, marking a year-on-year increase of 2.1 times. 10000 cases of unfair competition, including infringement of trade secrets and collusion in bidding, have been concluded.

Punitive damages were applied by courts nationwide in 460 civil cases of IPR infringement, marking a year-on-year increase of 44.2%. The Supreme People's Court applied punitive damages in accordance with the law in the "New Energy Vehicle Chassis" technology secret infringement case, and awarded a compensation amount of over RMB 640 million. This case has been selected as one of the "Top 10 Cases for Promoting the Rule of Law in the New Era in 2024".

Since its establishment 6 years ago, the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court has concluded nearly 20,000 technical IPR appeal cases, of which 1,233 cases relate to strategic emerging industries, accounting for 32.3%. Since 2021, the Supreme People's Court has lawfully concluded 37 cases of drug patent linkage appeals, effectively promoting the implementation of China's drug patent linkage system.