Criminal Intellectual Property Enforcement in Asia: Sources, Significance, and Side-Effects

As intellectual property (IP) has powered economic momentum all over the world, its protection has drawn significant attention from both academia and practice. While authors have discussed civil law-based IP enforcement long and thoroughly, that is not the case for criminal law. Criminal Intellectual Property Enforcement in Asia: Sources, Significance, and Side-Effects (Oxford University Press 2026), edited by Kung-Chung Liu and Tianxiang He, fills this gap by examining both theoretical and practical perspectives of this subject in a wide range of Asian countries. The volume highlights the role of criminal IP enforcement along side civil measures by comparing the efficiency of the two procedures and providing statistics on both approaches. A welcome feature of the book is the section on ‘problems with criminal provisions’ relating to IP enforcement in every country. Here, the authors criticise the overcriminalisation of IP enforcement in their jurisdiction, which is common in Asia. The book is not merely an overview of criminal IP enforcement but also a critical examination of these criminal measures from the point of view of public policy and legal philosophy. It is not a practical handbook but rather a comprehensive look at criminal IP enforcement in Asia and beyond.