Inside China’s New IP Courts

Amongst other changes is the introduction of the use of assistant judges, designed to improve the quality of decisions and help the courts handle a bigger workload. Catherine commented, “…the assistant judges will be helping a lot with tasks like preparing for hearings, research and decision writing, so hopefully this will allow the IP courts to handle a bigger workload and be more efficient.”

She also discussed the introduction of technical experts, commenting on a case in Guangdong where the judge had an examiner from the patent office attend the hearing and ask technical questions about the matter.