China's Supreme People's Court has rejected a retrial application from China Mengniu Dairy Company Ltd, upholding a lower court's ruling that the packaging of its "Selected Meadow" milk constituted unfair competition.
The appellate court held that the clog trade dress asserted by Crocs does not constitute "well-known trade dress," and that Hotwind's production and sale of the accused clogs do not constitute unfair competition. The court reversed the first-instance judgment.
On June 27, 2025, China's National People's Congress (NPC) passed the newly revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law, which will come into effect on October 15, 2025.
According to the SPP's case management office, approximately 16,000 individuals were involved in IP infringement cases during this period, marking a 21.5% increase from the previous year. This includes over 1,800 individuals implicated in complex cases such as trade secret theft.
In 2023, punitive compensation was applied in 319 cases, marking a 117% year-on-year increase, with a total compensation of 11.6 billion yuan, a 3.5-fold increase compared to the previous year.
