China’s Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate released a summary of their IP-related activities as part of their annual work report to the National People’s Congress.

As reported by the Beijing Intellectual Property Institute (www.bipi.org), here’s a quick summary of the numbers:

The total numbers of cases adjudicated by the SPC in 2014 was 9,882,000, an increase of 1.7% over 2013.  Amongst those cases there were 5,228,000 civil cases, with an overall increase of 5.7% from 2013.  There were also 131,000 administrative cases, with an increase of 8.3%.  The total number of IP cases of all types adjudicated by the SPC was about 110,000, an increase of 10 percent.

In a separate 2014 annual report, the SPC noted that there were 94,501 civil IP cases adjudicated in 2014 (about 1.8% of the civil case docket).  In addition, there were 10,303 IP adjudicated criminal cases (about .2% of the criminal docket), and 4,887 administrative cases (3.7% of the administrative docket).

The relatively low numbers of IP cases compared to China’s overall dockets and the changes that the IP system has brought to China’s judicial system in areas such as specialized IP courts and preliminary injunctions, demonstrates the out-sized influence on China’s judicial system.

The SPP’s report indicated that total prosecutions for trademark, patent, copyright, and trade secrets involved 9,427 people, an increase of 7.1% over last year.

More details should be available by the end of April, when numerous Chinese agencies release reports on their IP work for the year.