On July 21, 2025, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC, geoblocked) released statistic data for the first half of 2025. While litigation overall dropped 8.52% year-on-year, intellectual property cases were up 36.15%.  Further, 801 cases of first instance involving new plant varieties were accepted, up 84.14% year-on-year.   The SPC stated “The protection of seed industry intellectual property rights is related to national food security and the independent control of seed sources. The people’s courts have continuously increased the judicial protection of seed industry intellectual property rights, and promoted seed industry innovation and high-quality agricultural development with high-level judicial justice.”

Some other data points of interest include:

• 307,000 civil cases of first instance involving intellectual property rights were accepted, up 36.15% year-on-year. 
• 20,000 first-instance civil and commercial cases involving foreign parties were accepted, up 52% year-on-year.
• 307,000 civil cases of first instance involving intellectual property rights were accepted.
• The number of pending litigation cases in courts across the country for more than one year decreased by 13.18% year-on-year.

The full text of the announcement is available here on social media at the SPC’s website remains geoblocked.