On March 19, 2025, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) released the Fifth Batch of Typical Cases of Seed Industry Intellectual Property Protection By People’s Courts (人民法院种业知识产权司法保护典型案例 (第五批)). The Fifth Batch includes 15 typical cases of judicial protection of seed industry IP concluded in 2024 including 13 civil cases, 1 administrative case and 1 criminal case. While not a common law system, China uses typical cases to “guide” the lower courts and public.
Category: Case
5-Year Prison Term for Counterfeiting Burberry in China
On March 13, 2025, the Shanghai Procuratorate Third Branch announced that the Shanghai Third Intermediate People’s Court upheld a 5-year prison term and 2 million RMB fine for the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks belonging to Burberry. In 2021, the defendant, Gong XX, resumed operating an online store “XXX Overseas Shopping” and started selling counterfeit Burberry brand clothing. The cost of making a single piece of clothing involved in the case ranged from 500 to 700 RMB, but the selling …
Chinese Court Again Rules AI-Generated Images Are Eligible for Copyright Protection
On March 7, 2025, the Changshu People’s Court announced that it had ruled that images generated with Artificial Intelligence (AI) are eligible for copyright protection. This is believed to be the second case regarding AI-generated images with the Beijing Internet Court ruled similarly in late 2023. In the instant case, Lin XX generated an image of a half heart in a city waterfront using Midjourney and further used Photoshop to edit the image. An unnamed Changsha real estate company then used …
Supreme People’s Court Presiding Judge Chen Wenquan Elaborates on 640 Million RMB Trade Secret Case
On March 7, 2025, Judge CHEN Wenquan, the Supreme People’s Court judge that presided over the case that yielded the largest intellectual property damages in China’s history, elaborated on the case. In decision （2023）最高法知民终1590号 released June 14, 2024, the SPC applied 2X punitive damages on appeal in a dispute between two well-known (and unnamed) domestic automotive companies regarding new energy vehicle chassis technical trade secrets that were misappropriated in a personnel poaching scheme. The plaintiff is believed to be Geely …