The Supreme People's Procuratorate’s Increasing Role In Protecting IP | China IPR - Intellectual Property Developments in China

In 2005 I went to Shanghai as a visiting professor teaching copyright at East China University's School of Intellectual Property.   The existence of such a college was greeted with skepticism here when I reported on my trip.  But the existence of such a college was notable, as were the billboards declaring this to be "The Year of Intellectual Property".  Sixteen years have passed and we find that China's enforcement of IP law is greatly strengthened.  Of course the centrality of certain state owned enterprises makes the line between public and private thin.  But as Mark Cohen points out the central prosecution agency in China points out their enforcement efforts may actually exceed ours. - GWC

The SPP’s Increasing Role In Protecting IP | China IPR - Intellectual Property Developments in China

By Mark Cohen

On February 8, 2021, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) held a press conference, where it was revealed that from 2016 to 2020, procuratorial organs across the country approved the arrest of over 16,300 cases of 28,000 people and prosecuted more than 23,000 cases of more than 45,000 people. This is a much higher volume of criminal prosecutions than USDOJ, which charged 68 cases in FY 2019 according to a report of the White House IP Enforcement Coordinator. 

Another function of the procuracy is to supervise civil and administrative cases. From 2016 to 2020, procuratorial organs across the country accepted a total of 495 civil supervision cases and 205 administrative supervision cases.

Song Jianli 宋建立, Deputy Director of Procuratorial Office of Intellectual Property (POIP) of the SPP, addressed trade secret related criminal issues.  He noted that in recent years most of the targets of crimes involving misappropriation of commercial secrets have been the core technology secrets of enterprises, including the employees or former employees of foreign-invested enterprises, which are high-risk groups for crimes. The procuratorial organs plan to strengthen the protection of trade secrets in key technical fields, focusing on cracking down on trade secret misappropriation crimes involving high-tech technologies and key technologies along with enforcement of other IP rights.  Mr. Song was formerly a judge in the Supreme People’s Court’s (SPC) No. 4 Civil Division  and on the China International Commercial Court, specializing in cross-border civil and commercial cases. He was appointed to his current position last year. He will bring China’s rich civil IP experience, particularly that at the SPC plus his own international experience to bear on civil, administrative, and criminal IP matters.

The POIP of SPP was established on November 6, 2020 as an internal comprehensive case handling organization to integrate the criminal, civil, and administrative procuratorial functions of intellectual property.  Currently, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Sichuan Procuratorate have all set up POIPs to carry out a one-year pilot project for the centralized and unified exercise of IP procuratorial functions.