Prosecutors record sharp rise in IP cases related to digital field

Beijing prosecutors saw a sharp rise in intellectual property cases related to the digital field, and IP issues involving new technologies such as artificial intelligence have also been emerging, a report said.

Data released by the Beijing People's Procuratorate in an IP report on Friday showed that the city's prosecutors handled 1,083 IP cases in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 13.64 percent.

Among these cases, 91 were criminal cases involving piracy in the digital industry, representing a 3.55-fold increase year-on-year. These mainly covered areas such as digital music, online games, online literary works, data management platform software, and business secrets, the report revealed.

Meanwhile, IP cases related to new technologies, including AI, telecommunications, and biomedicine, have also been increasing in frequency, it said.

In a case handled by prosecutors in Tongzhou district, for instance, some defendants led by an individual surnamed Yao were found to have downloaded images of popular artistic works from online platforms. They engaged an AI-based image generator — powered by a large-scale data model hosted overseas — to process these images into pictures substantially identical to the original works, which were then made into collages and sold online for profit.

It was the first case in the Tongzhou jurisdiction involving copyright infringement through the use of AI-generated content.

In addition, prosecutors across the city have tackled more cases where people infringed upon the trademarks of cultural goods and services, such as blind boxes and souvenir gifts. Moreover, the leakage of trade secrets after job-hopping remains a serious problem, the report added.