China's top court has taken actions to alleviate burdens brought by a boom of cases in three intellectual property tribunals, a move to ensure work efficiency and improve legal credibility.
The three IP tribunals - in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong province - handled 10,795 disputes by Aug 20, and the number is still rapidly rising, according the Supreme People's Court on Wednesday.
"The cases heard by the three tribunals since they were set up at the end of last year have exceeded our expectations, and the number of judges we arranged for the tribunals cannot handle the enormous number of disputes," said Wang Chuang, deputy president of the IP department at the top court.
For example, the Beijing IP Tribunal has had 22 judges, but it has accepted 6,595 cases since it was established in November, "so the number of judicial officers cannot handle the case increases," Wang said.
He confirmed that there are more than five times the number of IP disputes than any other civil cases, but the number of competent judges, who have to master both legal and technological knowledge, is limited.
To alleviate the problem, the top court is preparing to select and provide more judges for the three tribunals and absorb professionals from the public to help them, he said.
"We hope to cooperate with law schools at colleges and universities, selecting more postgraduates to intern at the tribunals, assisting judges to draft indictments, seek judicial materials and comb evidence," he said.
Meanwhile, the top court encourages the three tribunals to set up databases of technological experts who can act as a think tank for the judges, he added.
Su Chi, president of the Beijing IP Tribunal, said that the shortage of judges is their biggest difficulty.
"We've contacted Peking University and Tsinghua University, hoping the interns can share the burdens and accumulate practical judicial experience," Su said. "We are also planning to recruit five technological experts from the public to be our think tank. After all, they're better at high-tech knowledge, such as cyberspace, software and computers, which is the kind of knowledge IP judges greatly need."
Wu Zhen, deputy president of the Guangzhou IP Tribunal, estimates that the number of cases this year will reach 5,000, so a judge has to deal with at least 400 disputes a year. "We're making full use of legal assistants, a new role helping judges search materials and communicate with litigants in a judicial reform raised by the country's leadership in 2013, hoping their efforts can reduce the judges' burden," Wu said.
