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12 February 2026
On January 28, 2026, the Intellectual Property Court of China’s Supreme People’s Court released its 2025 annual report.
The court received 449 new cases involving foreign parties and litigants from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, accounting for 16.9 percent of all new filings. Of those, 431 involved foreign parties (16.2 percent), and 18 involved Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan (0.7 percent). It concluded 492 such cases, up 15.8 percent year over year, making up 15.6 percent of all cases concluded.
Across technology‑related IP and antitrust matters, the court handled 4,679 cases in 2025, 2,663 new filings, 3,146 concluded cases and 1,533 pending; new filings rose 0.9 percent and concluded cases increased 8.5 percent from 2024. Since its 2019 launch, the court has accepted 24,602 cases and concluded 23,069.
Civil filings included 972 new second‑instance cases, including 674 patent and 238 plant‑variety disputes, while the administrative docket added 1,292 new second‑instance cases, led by patent validity and rejection reviews.
Of the 3,146 cases closed last year, 62.2 percent upheld lower court rulings and 15.0 percent were reversed. There were no remands.
Punitive damages continued to climb. Courts applied them in 30 cases, up 66.7 percent year on year, totalling Rmb1.13 billion (US$163.7 million), up 29.4 percent, averaging about Rmb38 million (US$5.5 million) per case. Thirty-two cases topped Rmb10 million (US$1.45 million), totalling Rmb2.54 billion (US$368 million).
Foreign parties most often came from the European Union at 37 percent and the United States at 31 percent, followed by Japan at 14 percent and South Korea at 3 percent.
- Cathy Li
