Intellectual Property Court of SPC Releases Report on 2025 Cases Handling Data and Trends since Establishment

Recently, the Annual Report of the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court of China (2025) was released. According to the report, the Intellectual Property Court, established on 1 January 2019 as China's national-level intellectual property (IP) case appeal mechanism, has accepted 24,602 cases and concluded 23,069 cases as of the end of 2025, and in 2025 alone, it accepted 4,679 cases and concluded 3,146 cases.

The report states that of the cases accepted in 2019-2025, 13,918 were civil second-instance substantive cases and 7,023 administrative second-instance substantive ones. Among the former, 7,860 cases concerned invention and utility model patent infringement disputes, 1,194 patent application rights and patent ownership disputes, 842 new plant variety right disputes, 20 integrated circuit layout design disputes, 355 trade secret disputes, 2,711 computer software disputes, 357 technology-related IP contract disputes, and 178 monopoly civil disputes.

In 2025 alone, 1,281 civil second-instance substantive cases and 1,473 administrative second-instance substantive cases were concluded. Of the former, 465 cases (36.3% of the total) upheld the original judgment, 320 (25%) withdrew the lawsuit, 159 (12.4%) settled by mediation, and 337 (26.3%) reversed the original judgment. And of the latter, 1,212 cases (82.3%) closed with the original judgment upheld, 137 cases (9.3%) with the lawsuit withdrawn, and 117 cases (7.9%) with the original judgment reversed.

Regarding foreign-related cases, the Intellectual Property Court accepted 2,546 cases of this type in 2019-2025, accounting for 10.3% of all cases newly accepted during the period and representing an average annual increase of 18.7%. These foreign-related cases mainly came from EU countries such as Germany, France, and Italy (37%), the US (31%), and Japan (14%). In 2025 alone, 431 foreign-related cases were accepted, accounting for 16.2% of all cases newly accepted in 2025.

In terms of judicial IP protection strengthening, following the introduction by the Civil Code of China (2021) of a unified punitive damages system for IP infringement in the country, the Intellectual Property Court has applied punitive damages in 58 cases, totalling RMB2.05 billion in compensation; and since the inception of the Intellectual Property Court, 73 cases have received high compensation (RMB10 million or above), amounting to RMB5.24 billion in total. In 2025, punitive damages totalling RMB1.13 billion (up 29.4% year-on-year) were awarded for 30 cases (up 66.7%), and high compensation damages for 32 cases, totalling RMB2.54 billion.