Criminal Arrests for Intellectual Property Crimes in China Up 99% in H1 2021
Tuesday, July 27, 2021

According to data (最高检发布上半年全国检察机关主要办案数据) released by China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) on July 25, 2021,

From January to June 2021, procuratorial authorities across the country approved the arrest of 4,286 suspected IPR infringement criminals, up by 99% year on year; prosecution of 6,017 persons, up by 12.6% year on year, non-prosecution of 540 persons, non-prosecution rate of 8.2%, down by 2.6 percentage points year on year.

The criminal charges involved in the prosecution case were mainly the crimes of counterfeiting registered trademarks and the crimes of selling products with counterfeited registered trademarks, which accounted for 2,676 persons and 2,138 persons, respectively, and accounted for 80% of the total number of prosecutions.

 

In total, “from January to June 2021, procuratorial organs across the country approved and decided to arrest 449,045 criminal suspects of all types, a year-on-year increase of 59.4%.” 

Dangerous driving is still the most prosecuted crime, with a total of 173,941 people prosecuted.  Specifically,

in terms of the charges prosecuted, the number one crime was dangerous driving with 173,941 people, up 54.6% year on year; in second place, there were 97,366 crimes of theft, up 15.8% year on year; in third place, there were 51,997 fraud cases, down 10.5% year on year; in fourth place, there were 40,217 gambling crimes, up 42.4% year on year; in fifth place, there were 40,025 crimes of intentional injury, up 11.8% year on year.

In a press conference, the SPP stated 

…the economically developed areas in southeast China are the main source [of criminal IP acts), including 1,463 people prosecuted in Guangdong [in the southeast], 987 in Shanghai, 416 in Zhejiang, 371 in Henan, and 341 in Jiangsu, which together accounted for 59.5% of the total number of prosecutions in the country.

The full release is available here.

 

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