IPR cases rise

China's courts handled more than 20,000 cases related to intellectual property rights (IPR) in the first 10 months of this year, rising nearly 40 percent year-on-year, Xinhua reports.

Local courts around China heard 20,806 IPR cases at first instance trials, up 36.9 percent; 3,251 cases at second instance trials, up about 50 percent, says Xi Xiaoming, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court.

The number of IPR cases asked for retrials after the second verdict amounted to 92, surging 162 percent year-on-year, Xi says.

"The massive growth in the number of IPR cases proves that verdicts in these kind of cases draw wide attention from society," Xi says.

The range expansion of IPR cases also contributed to the sharp increase, Xi says, adding that IPR violations the courts received vary from franchising, domain names, logos to IPR agents.

In order to improve the trial ability over these cases, the Supreme Court designated dozens of courts to handle specific IPR cases, including 71 courts on patent violation, 38 on new plant varieties and 43 on layout-design of integrated circuits.

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