Prosecutorial authorities in the Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei region have formally launched an integrated intellectual property enforcement collaboration system and released a batch of typical cases aimed at safeguarding the development of the digital economy.
The mechanism, along with the selected cases, was announced at the "Intellectual Property Empowers New Quality Productive Forces Development Forum," part of the 2026 Global Digital Economy Conference, held in Beijing on the morning of July 3.
The published typical cases span various emerging fields, including artificial intelligence, smart manufacturing, digital education, high-end equipment, book publishing, online gaming, and digital music. A particularly notable case released by the Beijing People's Procuratorate involves a defendant named Wang, who was charged with damaging a computer information system. As an algorithm engineer, Wang illicitly deleted approximately 89 terabytes of AI training data to use his company's computing resources for personal purposes, causing over 200,000 yuan in losses to his employer. In this case, the procuratorial organs identified the AI model and its training system as a "computer information system" and innovatively calculated the cost of restoring computing power based on GPU occupancy time, establishing a practical judicial standard for determining crimes in the AI sector.
In other cases, such as one involving 12 defendants led by Zhai for counterfeiting registered trademarks, and another involving 3 defendants led by Zeng for copyright infringement, the procuratorial authorities provided clear legal definitions for protecting the rights of specialized and sophisticated enterprises and for addressing new types of infringements like "account splitting for resale" in digital environments.
The newly launched collaborative mechanism represents an upgrade to the existing "Three Musts" system, which mandates mandatory review, reporting, and investigation of cases. The "Three Musts" system was previously selected as a model case in the third batch of examples for building a strong intellectual property nation. Since its establishment, procuratorial organs have handled 570 cross-regional cases and prosecuted 755 individuals under this framework.
Building on this foundation, the three regional procuratorates have comprehensively enhanced their collaborative efforts. First, they have established cross-regional prosecutorial teams to break down administrative barriers and facilitate the sharing of talent and information. Second, they have extended the application of the "Three Musts" system from the criminal sphere to include civil, administrative, and public interest litigation prosecutorial work, enabling a unified approach across all legal domains. Third, they have deepened collaboration in five key areas: joint case handling, theoretical research, case publication, joint training, and legal publicity, aiming to construct a comprehensive protection framework.
A responsible official from the Beijing People's Procuratorate stated that the launch of this mechanism marks a new starting point. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei prosecutorial authorities will continue to advance the standardization, seamless integration, and synchronized efforts in regional intellectual property protection. This initiative is designed to effectively address challenges in cross-regional rights enforcement and provide robust legal safeguards for the development of the Beijing (Jing-Jin-Ji) International Science and Technology Innovation Center and world-class industrial clusters.