Updated Statistics on IPR cases in 2009

According to the latest statistics of the Supreme People’s Court, in 2009 Chinese courts at all levels totally received 30,626 IPR civil cases of first instance, an increase of 25.49% year-on-year. Among them, there are 4422 patent cases, 6906 trademark cases, 15,302 copyright cases, 747 technical contract cases, 1282 unfair-competition cases and 1967 other IPR cases. The courts totally concluded 30,509 IPR civil cases of first instance, increasing by 29.73% over the last year, including 1361 foreign-related IPR cases, up 19.49% and 353 Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan-related IPR cases, up 56.89%. Moreover, the courts received 5340 IPR civil cases of second instance and concluded 5492 pieces, respectively increasing by 12.21% and 16.88% year-on-year. In the last year, the courts received 100 retrial cases, down 1.96% over the last year and concluded 107 retrial cases, increasing by 50.7%.

The rate of concluding the IPR civil cases of first instance in the local courts at different levels rose from 81.73% in 2008 to 85.04% in 2009, while the rate of appeal dropped from 49.93% in 2008 to 48.82% in 2009 and the rate of retrial dropped from 0.44% in 2008 to 0.33% in 2009. The average rate of withdrawing the IPR civil cases of first instance in the local courts through intermediation was 61.08%, up 5.22% year-on-year. The rate of concluding the IPR cases in the intellectual property tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court rose from 55.93% in 2008 to 88.64% in 2009, increasing by 32.71%.

In 2009, the courts totally concluded 3660 IPR criminal cases, an increase of 10.04% over the last year. In addition, the number of IPR administrative cases of first instance received and concluded by the courts was 2072 and 1971, respectively increasing 92.92% and 90.99% over the last year.

By the end of 2009, in China, there are five higher people’s courts, 44 intermediate people’s courts and 29 basic people’s courts in which three 　types of IPR cases, i.e. civil, criminal and administrative cases of IPR are trialed at one intellectual property tribunal.