South China Morning Post: China IP Cases Surge Amid US Complaints, Beijing Push for Technology Self-reliance by Orange Wang
The number of infringement cases involving intellectual property rights violations in China has surged 5,660 per cent over the past two decades, according to the top prosecutor’s office, in a sign of Beijing’s growing seriousness about rights protection as it seeks to boost innovation and appease the United States.
Details of the enforcement drive were released by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of China in an annual work report on Monday, marking the first time the office has provided data on long-term trends.
In 2019, Chinese authorities prosecuted a total of 11,003 people for violating trademarks, patents, copyright and business secrets, a rise of 32.2 per cent from 2018, Zhang Jun, China’s prosecutor general, said in the report.
Zhou Qiang, chief of the Supreme People’s Court, said the country’s courts heard 418,000 cases related to intellectual property (IP) rights last year, a 45.1 per cent increase from a year earlier. It was the third straight year that IP cases before China’s courts grew by at least 40 per cent.
“China has become the country that hears the most intellectual property cases, especially patent cases, and one of the countries with the shortest trial period,” Zhou told the national legislature when delivering his annual work report on Monday.