On February 22, 2024, the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court (“the IP Court”) of China released its 2023 Annual Report. The IP Court was launched on January 1, 2019. It serves as the single Second Instance (the effective and typically final instance) court for patent and other IP cases of technical nature nationwide. For the 5-year anniversary of its founding, the Annual Report also included some statistics of cases handled by the IP Court in the past five years. In this newsletter, we would like to share some key data from the report with you.

Key Data of 2023

In 2023, the IP Court continued to see significant increases in both newly received and concluded second-instance (appeal) civil and administrative cases involving technology-related intellectual property matters and anti-monopoly matters (the court's designated subject matter jurisdiction).

During the year, the IP Court received 5,062 new cases, representing an increase of 14.9% over 2022. In total, 4,562 cases were concluded, representing an increase of 31.5%. On average, around 140 cases were assigned to one judge and about 82 cases were concluded by one judge.

Among the newly received second-instance civil cases¹, 3,222 were substantive in nature. A large amount of these cases were related to invention patent infringement and, especially, utility model infringement.

                                                 

Among the newly received second-instance administrative cases² , 1,277 were substantive in nature. Almost 2/3 of these cases were invalidation cases over invention, utility model and design patents. 

                                                  

 

The IP Court received in total 1,934 cases that involved a party from a foreign country (1,678 cases) or Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan (256 cases) in the past five years, representing 10.2% of the total received cases. 1,422 cases were concluded or about 9.1% of the total concluded cases.

The above is a summary of the highlights from the Annual Report. As you can see, the IP Court has been very active and continues to receive and conclude a large number of cases during the past five years.

If you have any questions, please contact us at sinda@chinasinda.com.

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1 Appeals of first instance civil case judgments or rulings made by High Courts, IP Courts, and Intermediate Courts nationwide regarding all patent and other IP cases of technical nature.
2 Appeals of first instance administrative case judgments or rulings made by the Beijing IP Court regarding examination or invalidation of all patents, new plant varieties, or integrated circuit layout designs. And appeals of first instance administrative case judgments or rulings made by High Courts, IP Courts, and Intermediate Courts nationwide regarding administrative decisions involving all patent and other IP cases of technical nature.