According to a press release from China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) of 4 August 2023, 11,675 people were prosecuted for IP crimes in the first half of 2023, up 36.1% compared to the previous year. Most IP crimes are criminal trademark infringements with 10,384 people prosecuted. Copyright was second with 1,122 people prosecuted. Misappropriation of trade secrets ranked third with 167 people prosecuted, an increase of 89.8% compared to the previous year.

Trademark cases mostly include products that are closely related to daily life, such as cigarettes, food, health care products and clothing. Trademark infringement is connected to the crime of producing and selling counterfeit and inferior products. For example, in the case handled by the Jiangsu Procuratorate the defendant sold many counterfeit well-known brands of clothing through Internet-platforms with sales amounting to more than 4 million RMB in half a year.

Regarding copyright, the illegal electronic distribution of literary, audiovisual, musical, computer software and other works is fast and easy, and infringement cases have therefore increased.

As for the misappropriation of trade secrets, the SPP stated that as it is difficult for outsiders to directly obtain a company’s trade secrets, it is often the company’s employees, especially technical staff, who quit and take trade secrets to collude with external parties to commit criminal acts. For example, in a trade secret infringement case handled by the Jiangsu Procuratorate, employees illegally obtained technical information related to the company’s innovative drugs with a value of more than 900 million RMB.

In addition, the Procuratorate found an increase of joint and cross-regional crimes in intellectual property infringement crimes.