The Beijing Internet Court (BIC) released a white paper on its trial work at a press conference held on Aug 31, 2023, to comprehensively showcase its work achievements in the past five years, better play the functional role of internet judiciary and serve the high-quality development of Beijing's digital economy. 

Jiang Ying, president of the Beijing Internet Court, releases a white paper on trial work at a press conference on Aug 31, 2023. [Photo/Beijing Internet Court]

Jiang Ying, president of the BIC, briefed on the highlights of the white paper,consisting of five parts, including the overview, rule guidance, innovative reforms and open development, the white paper comprehensively illustrated the BIC's practices in exploring new trial models, establishing new litigation rules, improving trial mechanisms, promoting law-based cyberspace governance and enhancing China's power of international discourse and regulation formulation. 

By the end of July 2023, the court had accepted 194,000 cases, 182,000 of which has been concluded. The majority of cases are mainly concerned copyright ownership and infringement disputes, online infringement liability disputes, and information network sales contract disputes, accounting for 71.57 percent, 11.27 percent and 8.65 percent, respectively. 

The BIC has built a multifunctional, whole-process and integrated e-litigation platform, completing the overall transition of the litigation model from offline to online, with 100 percent in online case-filing, 92.24 percent in online payment of litigation fees, and 99.89 percent in online case hearing. 

The online litigation model has reduced travel distance for the parties by 184 million kilometers, reduced carbon emissions by 22,000 tons, and saved paper consumption equivalent of 556-story building. 

As Jiang introduced, the BIC has created four major adjudication rule databases for intellectual property, civil, commercial, and procedural cases, based on which, the court has developed seven major adjudication rule systems. Since its establishment, the BIC has had seven cases included in the Supreme People's Court(SPC)'s work reports during the annual two sessions of the National People's Congress and the National Committee of the  Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Nineteen cases were included in the SPC’s top 10 guiding cases, and three were included as reference cases for courts in Beijing. This highlights the rule-setting and value-oriented role and function of internet judicial adjudication. 

In response to the pain points regarding online evidence collection, being hard-to-deposit, easy-to-falsify and hard-to-testify, the BIC has built Tianping Blockchain, China's first court-led blockchain electronic evidence platform. At present, Tianping Blockchain has been connected to 25 application units, with  over 200 million pieces of electronic data on the chain, and 34,199 pieces of cross-chain verified electronic data, involving 7,554 cases. A combination of smart litigation services and technologies have been introduced, achieving 100 percent accuracy in case-related fee payments, with the fee delivery time having been significantly shortened.

In response to the high occurrence of copyright cases, the BIC launched the Tianping Blockchain-Copyright Chain co-governance platform, forming the "E-copyright" litigation-source co-governance model, with which the number of filing copyright cases in 2022 dropped by 48 percent, an indication of the effective resolution of disputes at the source.

Moreover, the BIC has sent 23 judicial suggestions to relevant administrative organs, industrial associations and online platform companies, with a 100 percent response rate to administrative organs, subjects covering such areas as platform supervision loopholes, the online surfing mechanism for minors, illegal online industries, and litigation-source governance for bulk cases, in a bid to form joint forces in regulating the development of a platform economy.  

Xu Changming, head of the Political Department of the Beijing Internet Court, hosts the press conference on Aug 31, 2023. [Photo/Beijing Internet Court]

Since its establishment, the BIC has received foreign guests from 79 countries and regions worldwide, many of whom were impressed by China's achievements in digital development. As Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, then-president of the International Court of Justice commented, the BIC has laid the foundation for the future pattern of judicial activities.

Also at the conference, the BIC released 10 typical cases respectively in the five categories of digital copyright, digital consumption, platform governance, data algorithm, and online-related rights protection.