/>iOn March 8, 2025, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) released its 2025 Work Report at the 14th National People’s Congress. Regarding intellectual property, the SPC states that 21,000 people we prosecuted for IP crimes in 2024 and highlighted the trade secret case of Zhang, who was prosecuted under China’s version of the Economic Espionage Act. Other significant criminal IP cases were surprisingly not highlighted, like the 9-year prison sentence for criminal copyright infringement of Lego bricks.
The opening ceremony of the third session of the 14th National People’s Congress was held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
The IP section from the SPP’s work report follows:
Serve innovation-driven development. Strengthen judicial protection of intellectual property rights, promote the cultivation and growth of emerging industries such as artificial intelligence and biomedicine, assist in the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, and protect the development of new quality productivity in accordance with local conditions. We prosecuted 21,000 people for crimes such as infringement of trademark rights, patent rights, copyrights and trade secrets. In one case, Zhang and others illegally obtained a company’s core chip technology, and the Shanghai Procuratorate filed a public prosecution for suspected infringement of trade secrets. We handled 4,219 civil, administrative and public interest litigation cases involving intellectual property rights, protect the legitimate rights and interests of scientific and technological innovation entities in accordance with the law, and serve high-level scientific and technological self-reliance.
The full text is available here (Chinese only)
