China’s Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate Release Typical Cases of Criminal IP Enforcement for 2024

Posted on Categories Case, Copyright, Trade Secrets, Trademarks

On April 24, 2025, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) released the Typical Cases of Criminal IP Enforcement for 2024 (知识产权刑事保护典型案例). This batch was released to show how the newly-issued Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights applies in criminal cases. This batch involves several foreign IP owners including Lego and Universal Studios.  …

China’s Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate Issue Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Intellectual Property Infringement

Posted on Categories Copyright, New Law, Rule or Implementing Regulation, Patents, Trade Secrets, Trademarks

On April 24, 2025, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) and Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) jointly issued the Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Intellectual Property Infringement (关于办理侵犯知识产权刑事案件适用法律若干问题的解释).  The Interpretation clarifies trademark crimes, patent counterfeiting, copyright crimes, trade secret misappropriation, and common issues arising in IP crimes (e.g., heavier or reduced sentences).  The Interpretation is effective as of April 26, 2025.

China’s Supreme People’s Court Releases Summary of the Annual Report on the Application of Law in Intellectual Property Cases (2024) Listing 41 Case-Derived IP Laws

Posted on Categories Case, Copyright, Design Patent, Patents, Trade Secrets, Trademarks

On April 21, 2025, China’s Supreme People’s Court released the Summary of the Annual Report on the Application of Law in Intellectual Property Cases (2024) (全国法院知识产权案件法律适用问题年度报告(2024)摘要) listing 41 laws derived from 2024 IP litigation cases (and 2 from antitrust).  While China is not a common law country, China’s SPC regularly releases guiding or typical cases as well as these summaries to promote uniformity to help ensure similar cases are treated consistently across different courts.

Chinese Court Again Rules AI-Generated Images Are Eligible for Copyright Protection

Posted on Categories Case, Copyright

On March 7, 2025, the Changshu People’s Court announced that it had ruled that images generated with Artificial Intelligence (AI) are eligible for copyright protection.  This is believed to be the second case regarding AI-generated images with the Beijing Internet Court ruled similarly in late 2023.   In the instant case, Lin XX generated an image of a half heart in a city waterfront using Midjourney and further used Photoshop to edit the image. An unnamed Changsha real estate company then used …