Beijing Internet Court handles mountains of casework, online

Beijing saw a rapid growth in internet-related cases over the past year, and almost all of them were heard online, according to a report released by a specialized court in the city on Sept 3.

The Beijing Internet Court filed 34,263 cases from Sept 9, 2018, when it was open to public, to Saturday. Of these, 25,333 have been concluded. Of the total, 31,223 were filed this year, said the report, adding the dispute number is still rising sharply.

When the court was set up, it promised litigants could submit materials, track lawsuits, attend case hearings, receive rulings and communicate with judges online.

A year later, about 99 percent of disputes have been solved in cyberspace, and more than 95 percent of verdicts have been sent through the internet, the report said.

Litigants can file and follow their cases after registering an account on the court’s website, bjinternet.gov.cn, where their identities will be confirmed by facial recognition and real-name authentication technology.

The average hearing time for a case in the court is 37 minutes, while the average time the court takes to conclude a case is 40 days, the report read.

Of disputes heard by the court in the past year, more than 80 were related to online intellectual property rights, such as infringements on online photos, short videos and films.

The court is the second internet court to be established in the country. China’s first internet court was set up in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province in Aug 2017 to deal with burgeoning disputes regarding online purchases and financial activities in the area.

As a base of many internet and technology enterprises, Beijing also witnessed a boom in internet-related disputes in the last few years, necessitating the establishment of a second internet court in a technology zone; the city’s Fengtai district.

Beijing Internet Court mainly handles internet and intellectual property rights cases, including those on online loans, online shopping contracts and online copyright issues, according to a judicial interpretation from the Supreme People’s Court.

The IP rulings of the district-level court can be appealed at the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, and other cases can be appealed at Beijing No 4 Intermediate People’s Court.