Zhou Qiang, President of the Supreme People’s Court, said Chinese courts handled more intellectual property rights cases last year – a key area of tension in trade relations between Washington and Beijing. In his report to the National People’s Congress (NPC) session, he said that 288,000 first instance IP-related cases had been concluded in 2018 – up 41.8% from a year ago. It was the second consecutive year the number of IPR cases processed by the courts went up by more than 40%. In 2017, Chinese courts handled 213,480 such cases – a rise of 40.4% from the previous year.

In a separate report, Zhang Jun, Procurator General of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, highlighted the number of IPR-related prosecutions. He said that 8,325 people had been prosecuted in 2018 for acts including infringement of patent and trademark rights and trade secrets – a rise of 16.3% from the previous year. The jump in the number of cases indicated a greater awareness of protecting intellectual property rights, according to Fang Jianwei, Partner with Zhong Lun Law Firm in Beijing. China first established specialized IP courts in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai in 2014. Last year, a new IP tribunal was set up at the Supreme Court to handle appeals relating to civil and administrative IP issues such as trademarks, patents, trade secrets and unfair competition.

SPC President Zhou Qiang added that there were plans to open 19 more IP courts, adding that 15,000 civil and commercial IP first instance cases involving foreign parties had been handled last year. Shen Changyu, Director of the National Intellectual Property Administration, said a number of IPR protection centers would be opened to provide the public with a more convenient, efficient and lower-cost channel to protect their rights. Asked if intellectual property had to be included in a trade deal, Trump said: “Yes, it does”, the South China Morning Post reports.