Greater China IP Watch

Earlier this spring, the Supreme People's Procuratorate released its White Paper on Intellectual Property Prosecution Work (2025), coinciding with the formal establishment — approved by central authorities in 2025 — of a dedicated Intellectual Property Procuratorial Department within the SPP. This structural change, which has so far received less attention in this bulletin than the SPC and CNIPA developments covered in earlier issues, deserves a closer look given its relevance to the broader institutional architecture underpinning every enforcement story this issue has covered.

Provincial procuratorates in Beijing, Zhejiang, Hubei, and Inner Mongolia have established corresponding IPR procuratorial departments at the local level, and the SPP appointed its first group of 60 technical investigation officers covering mechanics, chemistry, biology, medicine, and electronic communication — specialists intended to assist prosecutors in handling technically complex IP crime cases, a long-standing bottleneck in criminal IP enforcement given the gap between legal and technical expertise.

The white paper also documents notable enforcement activity: procuratorates initiated 70 public interest litigations concerning geographical indications in 2025, and a Beijing investigation identified IP agency institutions that had submitted false testing agreements during GI registration applications, resulting in the invalidation of 29 geographical indication certification marks — products affected included Fenggang Zinc Selenium Tea, Datong Daylily, Qinzhou Yellow Millet, Nagqu Tibetan Plateau Caterpillar Fungus, Jingyuan Yellow Beef, and Regong Thangka.

In the final days of the prior reporting period, the Suzhou Intermediate People's Court issued its ruling in the patent infringement action brought by Chinese gallium nitride (GaN) chipmaker Innoscience Technology against Infineon Technologies AG, finding that Infineon had infringed two of Innoscience's core GaN invention patents. The court ordered Infineon to immediately cease the sale, offer for sale, and importation of the infringing products in China, and awarded Innoscience damages of RMB 10 million.

This ruling is the latest — and most consequential to date — step in a dispute that now spans at least three major jurisdictions with materially different outcomes in each:

China. CNIPA first affirmed the validity of Innoscience's two core GaN patents on November 19, 2025, rejecting Infineon's administrative invalidation requests. Infineon then filed administrative lawsuits with the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, which on April 24, 2026, fully upheld the patents' validity and again rejected Infineon's challenge. The Suzhou court's May 27 infringement ruling and injunction followed directly from this now twice-confirmed validity — a structural advantage for Innoscience that significantly narrowed Infineon's available defences in the infringement proceeding itself. Notably, both asserted patents were granted under CNIPA's fast-track pre-examination system — one in just three months, the other in just over eleven — making this case an early and closely watched test of whether expedited examination produces patents that hold up under serious adversarial scrutiny. They have, twice.

United States. The picture is reversed. On May 7, 2026, the full Commission of the US International Trade Commission issued its final determination in Investigation No. 337-TA-1414, finding that Innoscience had infringed one of Infineon's GaN patents and formally imposing an importation and sales ban against Innoscience products — upholding the ITC Administrative Law Judge's earlier determination. That ban is subject to a 60-day Presidential review period before taking formal effect.

Germany. Infineon has separately asserted three patents and one utility model against Innoscience before the Munich I Regional Court, with a ruling already issued on one patent (in Infineon's favour, August 2024) and trials on the remaining patent and utility model scheduled for June 2026.