Source: China IP News
On July 25, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of the People’s Republic of China (SPP) released the major statistics on prosecution from January to June of 2021. They approved the prosecution of 6,017 persons involved in intellectual property infringement criminals, which was a new record high over the past five years.
In order to better serve and safeguard the construction of China’s world science and technology power, the SPP set up an IP office to conduct a pilot program of centralized and unified performance of intellectual property procuratorial duties among the procuratorates of nine provinces and municipalities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Chongqing, Sichuan, and Hainan in 2020.
From January to June 2021, the procuratorial authorities across the country approved the prosecution of 6,017 persons, up by 12.6% year on year. The rate of prosecution has reached a new high (91.8%), 6.2% higher than the overall crime rate. The cases were mainly the crimes of counterfeiting registered trademarks and the crimes of selling products with counterfeited registered trademarks, which accounted for 2,676 persons and 2,138 persons, respectively, and accounted for 80% of the total number of prosecutions. The economically developed areas in southeast China are the main source of criminal IP acts, including 1,463 people prosecuted in Guangdong, 987 in Shanghai, 416 in Zhejiang, 371 in Henan, and 341 in Jiangsu, which together accounted for 59.5% of the total number of prosecutions in the country.
In terms of the civil prosecution, the cases related to IP area have also obviously increased. From January to June, the procuratorial authorities across the country received a total of 100 executed civil judgments and trial supervision cases related to IP and competition disputes, up by 88.7% year on year, in which 63 cases were related to IP ownership and infringement disputes, accounting for 63%, and 28 cases were related to IP contract disputes, accounting for 28%, and 5 cases were related to protest to the executed trial supervision cases, and 1 case was related to the suggestion from prosecutorial organizations for retrial.
