Riding the crest of a boom in intellectual property rights

With the Chinese government starting a nationwide effort to strengthen IPR protection through the legal system and the Chinese courts, it is boom time for intellectual property rights in China.

In 2012, the number of civil IPR cases that were received by the courts in China rose by 46 percent year-on-year, to 87,419. So far in 2013, the growth has continued at an even faster rate than in 2012. More than 80 percent of the IPR cases heard in 2012 in China were copyright and trademark cases. Disputes over patents, unfair competition and technology agreements made up the rest. More than 2 percent of the cases heard involved Chinese litigants not from the mainland a substantial increase from previous years.

There are two main reasons to explain the sudden increase in the foreign participation in IPR cases heard by the Chinese courts.