On 24 April 2025, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) and Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) jointly issued the Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Intellectual Property Infringement, which will take effect on 26 April 2025.

The Interpretation consists of 31 articles, addressing five major areas: trademark-related offenses (Articles 1–8), patent counterfeiting (Articles 9–10), copyright infringement (Articles 11–15), trade secret violations (Articles 16–21), and general provisions applicable to intellectual property (IP) crimes (Articles 22–30).

Among other clarifications, the Interpretation defines key legal standards for terms such as “same category of goods or services,” “identical trademarks,” and “representations of registered trademarks,” and introduces conviction thresholds for trademark counterfeiting in the context of services. It also specifies scenarios that constitute “counterfeiting another person’s patent” and establishes corresponding criminal liability thresholds. With regard to copyright infringement, the Interpretation clarifies the criteria for “without authorization” and “reproduction and distribution,” and sets out specific thresholds for criminal prosecution. In relation to trade secret offenses, it provides standards for determining acts such as “unauthorized electronic intrusion” and what constitutes “serious circumstances.” Additionally, it defines the elements of joint criminal conduct and elaborates on the legal definitions of terms such as “illegal business turnover,” “value of infringing goods,” “sales revenue,” and “illegal gains” in the context of IP infringement.

Notably, the Interpretation lowers the thresholds for criminal liability in several areas, including trademark representation violations, patent counterfeiting, and the sale of infringing copies. It also expands the scope of criminal liability for the sale of infringing goods by incorporating criteria such as “sales amount,” “value of goods,” and “number of infringing copies sold” into the determination of guilt. Furthermore, it increases the upper limit for fines based on illegal gains in IP-related criminal cases.
Upon its entry into force, this Interpretation will replace three prior judicial interpretations on the same subject jointly issued by the SPC and SPP in 2004, 2007, and 2020, respectively, as well as the Reply on Issues Concerning Audio-Visual Products in Handling Criminal Cases of Copyright Infringement (2005).