The Supreme People’s Court has observed a surge in IP lawsuits involving multinational corporations during the first half of 2013.
From January to May, local judges handled 24,544 IP suits, up by 37% year-on-year and approximately 2% of the total (504 suits) involved with foreign litigants, according to the Court.
“With fiercer global competition, as well as a tendency for trade protectionism in certain countries, we have seen a remarkable increase in cross-border IPR conflicts,” Kong Xiangjun, president of the IP Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court, told China Daily.
All suits are related to patent, trademark or copyright infringements. MNCs such as Abbott Laboratories, Apple, General Electric and Microsoft from the United States, Michelin from France, BMW from Germany and Honda from Japan have all appeared as litigants in those kinds of suits in China in recent years, said Kong.
Growing awareness of IP protection of domestic companies, IT start-ups in particular, and consolidated efforts of judicial departments to combat copyright infringement, have also contributed to such large number of suits, said Kong.
