On 24 Apr. 2025, China’s Supreme People's Court (SPC) and Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) jointly released the “Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Intellectual Property (IP) Infringement” (hereinafter the “Interpretation”, 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) along with typical cases. The Interpretation clarifies the standards for identifying criminal counterfeiting of registered service trademarks, thereby strengthening IP protection in the service industry.
Formulated based on Amendment XI to China’s Criminal Law, this Interpretation provides a new systematic explanation of IP crimes. It incorporates three previous related judicial interpretations, which are now repealed.
The Interpretation contains 31 articles and is divided into five parts, including provisions on trademark crimes, the crime of counterfeiting patents, copyright crimes, trade secret crimes, and general provisions on IP crimes.
Taking trademark crimes as an example, the Interpretation further clarifies the identification standards for “identical goods/services”, “identical trademarks”, and “registered trademark symbols” that have been highly disputed in practice. Building on previous judicial interpretations, the Interpretations adds provisions on the criterion for criminalization of trademark crimes, such as counterfeiting registered service trademarks.
China has intensified IP criminal enforcement in recent years. According to the SPP’s White Paper on IP Prosecution Work (2024) (知识产权检察工作白皮书（2024）), in 2024, procuratorial organs nationwide accepted 1,338 cases involving 3,266 suspects for review and prosecution of copyright infringement crimes. This represents a year-on-year increase of 27.9% and 18.9% respectively. 2,090 individuals were prosecuted, an increase of 27.4% year-on-year.
Contributors: CJO Staff Contributors Team
