The white paper “China’s Intellectual Property Protection Status in 2025” was officially released on May 7, comprehensively showing the progress of China's IP protection work in 2025.

Protection efforts have yielded notable results. Judicial IP protection has been comprehensively strengthened. Courts nationwide accepted 473,000 new civil first-instance IP cases; procuratorial authorities reviewed and approved arrests in 6,220 cases of criminal IP infringement; public security authorities investigated and handled at least 26,000 criminal cases.

Administrative protection has been further advanced: market regulatory authorities investigated and handled 37,000 IP law violation cases, IP administrative authorities concluded 9,341 administrative adjudication cases on patent infringement disputes; and customs seized 86.42 million pieces of suspected infringing imports/exports.

System building “consolidates the foundation”: The protection network grew denser, with 7 new national-level IP protection centers and rapid rights protection centers established, bringing the total to 129. Meanwhile, the overseas IP dispute response guidance platform helped enterprises recover RMB 2.75 billion in losses throughout the year.

Institutional development made solid progress. In 2025, China’s legal framework for IP protection continued to be strengthened, with 18 laws, regulations, and rules formulated or revised, and 2 judicial interpretations issued.

IP examination and registration achieved both quantitative and qualitative growth. As of the end of 2025, the number of valid invention patents in China reached 6.318 million, an increase of 11.1% year-on-year; the number of valid registered trademarks reached 53.032 million, up 6.5% year-on-year; the total annual number of copyright registrations reached 10.677 million; a total of 5,066 geographical indication products had been recognized; the annual number of applications for new agricultural plant variety rights climbed to 17,104, up 15.26% from the previous year.

From CNIPA

May 7th, 2026