China convicts nearly 30,000 for IPR crimes

Chinese courts convicted 29,852 people for crimes relating to intellectual property rights (IPR) from 2008 to June 2012, China's Chief Justice Wang Shengjun said Tuesday.

During the period, courts received 20,596 IPR-related criminal cases and concluded 19,691, said Wang during a briefing to legislators at an ongoing bimonthly session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC).

In the meantime, 180,213 civil law suits were closed, including 5,670 involving foreign parties, according to Wang, president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC).

The SPC is responsible to the NPC and its standing committee under the Chinese Constitution.

The figure of concluded administrative trials stood at 8,749, with 1,088 resulting in revocation of government decisions, Wang said.

Wang highlighted the use of mediation in IPR proceedings, noting that 66.7 percent of civil IPR cases ended up in withdrawal after mediation, including the highly attended Apple vs. Proview over the "iPad" trademark.

The courts also published 43,488 pieces of IPR case judgment documents on the Internet, so as to enhance transparency of judicial work, said Wang.

The 2008-2011 period also witnessed an average annual growth rate of 33.1 percent of registered IPR cases, 26.3 percentage points higher than those of regular civil disputes, according to Wang's report.

China had 2,731 IPR judges working in 420 courts by June, said Wang.

In response to growing difficulties in handling complex cases, Wang suggested to set up independent IPR courts, further clarify legislation on IPR proceedings and promote a culture of credit in commercial activities and social life.

Wu Bangguo, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, was present at Tuesday's session.

At the session, Cao Jianming, head of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), urged procuratorates at all levels to deepen reforms and enhance civil administrative supervision while briefing to lawmakers a report on civil administrative procuratorial work.

The number of civil administrative appeal cases into procuratorial system has kept growing, said Cao. From January 2008 to August this year, procuratorates across the country handled 438,970 such cases.

Cao said the SPP will implement the amended Civil Procedure Law and update ideas to fit the demands of the revised law so to ensure the correct use of civil administrative procuratorial power.