On September 8, the IP courts were officially inaugurated in Hangzhou and Ningbo, marking the beginning of cross-administrative jurisdiction over specific civil, administrative and criminal IP cases across the province of Zhejiang.

It is known that the IP courts in Hangzhou and Ningbo are in charge of five types of first-instance civil IP cases, such as cases involving patents, technical secrets, computer software, new plant varieties, IC layout design and well-known trademark identification and monopoly disputes and cases involving trademark rights, copyright, unfair competition and technical contract disputes with the subject matter of action valued over 8 million yuan.

The courts both in Hangzhou and Ningbo have set up specific windows for case filing and rolled out the cross-regional case service and the smart court hearing system, so that the parties involved can submit their pleadings to the court nearby and take part in the court session online without leaving their house.