On November 6, 2024, China’s Beijing Intellectual Property (IP) Court released the “White Paper on the Judicial Work of Beijing Intellectual Property Court in the Past Ten Years” (北京知识产权法院十年审判工作白皮书(2014-2024)). The White Paper includes statistics on the types of cases it handles, the majority being administrative litigation against the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) to overturn invalidation or reexamination decisions. Per the statistics, the Beijing IP Court has seen a significant drop in cases with no reason provided although this may be because the Beijing IP Court has gotten stricter with venue shopping or the change in jurisdiction rules in 2022 (although one would think this would show up immediately).

Unfortunately the Court did not release statistical data that would be helpful for foreign applicants or IP owners in determining whether they should proceed with an administrative litigation, e.g., how often does the Beijing IP Court reverse the CNIPA or how often does the Beijing IP Court rule in favor of foreign applicants or IP owners.

Some excerpts follow:

• Over the past decade, the Beijing IP Court has heard 36,201 foreign-related intellectual property cases, representing 17.92% of its caseload, with parties from over 100 countries and regions across five continents.
• From November 2014 to October 2024, the Beijing IP Court accepted 201,984 cases and closed 195,506 cases.
• The past 10 years witnessed continuous growth in cases accepted in the first eight years and a slight decline (sic) in the last two years. In the first eight years (2014 to 2022), the number of cases accepted increased at an average annual growth rate of 14.04%. A turning point appeared in 2023 in the number of cases accepted, where the cases accepted in 2023 decreased by 5.06% compared with 2022. From January to October 2024, the number of cases accepted continued to decline year-on-year by 10.3%.
• From November 2014 to October 2024, the Beijing IP Court accepted 149,486 administrative cases, accounting for 74.01% of the total number of cases accepted during the same period, with an average annual growth rate of 14.85%; and closed 144,186 administrative cases, accounting for 73.75% of the total number of cases closed during the same period.
• From November 2014 to October 2024, the Beijing IP Court accepted 52,498 civil cases, accounting for 25.99% of the total number of cases accepted during the same period, with an average annual growth rate of 11.64%; and closed 51,320 civil cases, accounting for 26.25% of the total number of cases closed during the same period, with an average annual growth rate of 20.36%.
• The number of civil cases accepted experienced a turning point in 2023, where the number of cases accepted in 2023 decreased by 17.71% compared with 2022, and the number of cases accepted from January to October 2024 continued to decline year-on-year by 31.06%.
• In terms of the type of intellectual property rights, from November 2014 to October 2024, the Beijing IP Court accepted 21,976 patent cases, with an average annual growth rate of 5.24%, accounting for 10.88% of the total number of cases accepted. 
• The Beijing IP Court accepted 137,435 trademark cases, with an average annual growth rate of 16.27%, accounting for 68.04% of the total number of cases accepted.
• From November 2014 to October 2024, the Beijing IP Court accepted 37,139 copyright cases, with an average annual growth rate of 13.20%, accounting for 18.39% of the total number of cases accepted.
• From November 2014 to October 2024, the Beijing IP Court accepted 3,767 competition cases (including anti-unfair competition, anti-monopoly, franchise contracts, and network domain names), with an average annual growth rate of 10.48%, accounting for 1.86% of the total number of cases accepted.

As the Beijing IP Court website may be hard to access for foreigners, I’ve posted a copy of the White Paper here: 北京知识产权法院十年审判工作白皮书（2014-2024）(Chinese and English).