On August 6, 2019, the Party General Branch of ZhongYin Law Firm and the Beijing Association for Alternative Dispute Resolution - ZhongYin Internet Dispute Mediation Center jointly organized an Internet Civil Litigation Seminar. Judges Han Bing and Yi Ran of Beijing Internet Court, Associate Professor Geng Lin of Law School of Tsinghua University, and Deputy Secretary of Party General Branch and Management Committee Member Wu Guanghong, Director of Internet Dispute Mediation Center and Senior Partner Zhang Xiaojun, Management Committee Members and Senior Partners Liu Zhenyu, Wu Zetao of ZhongYin attended the Seminar. Attorney Chen Yan of ZhongYin presided over the Seminar. More than 140 colleagues in the head and branch offices of ZhongYin participated in the Seminar onsite or online.

Judge Han Bing

Judge Han Bing receives her LLM degree from Jilin University. She has served as the vice president of the Criminal Tribunal of Beijing Railway Transport Court, and now is a judge of Beijing Internet Court. Her academic paper was awarded in the 30th Academic Symposium of National Court.

With the popularity and development of the Internet, transactions are shifting from offline to online. Going with the trend of the times, Internet courts emerge. In this Seminar, starting from the three practical situations of online litigation around the world, Judge Han Bing introduced the development history and main features of Beijing Internet Court. Different from traditional courts, Beijing Internet Court has realized an operation mode of “24h On Call” by building an electronic litigation platform. Prosecution, mediation, case filing, service, court trial, judgment pronouncement, and enforcement are all carried out online, not only saving litigation costs but also improving litigation efficiency, and making litigation procedures be more open, transparent, convenient and efficient. Beijing Internet Court has centralized jurisdiction over 11 particular types of cases that should be accepted by the grassroots people's courts in Beijing. By combining a number of cases handled by herself, Judge Han Bing discussed with the participants the hot topics in copyright protection, including whether a link to broadcast of sports event constitutes infringement or not, the disputes involved in failure to go through procedures of change registration after a domain name expires, and the application of safe harbor principles, the identification of originality of content intelligently generated by software in determining its copyright, and so on.

Judge Yi Ran

Judge Yi Ran has a Master's Degree in Law from Central University of Finance and Economics. He has engaged in civil trials for ten years and is currently a judge of Beijing Internet Court. He has participated in the major research on “blockchain intellectual property protection” jointly initiated by Beijing Internet Court and Zhongguancun Intellectual Property Promotion Bureau, and has conducted in-depth research on evidence preservation and intellectual property protection in the context of the Internet.

In network copyright cases, the parties and their attorneys believe that the electronic evidence is at risk of being lost and not recognized by the court. In view of this, Beijing Internet Court has taken the lead in launching China’s first electronic evidence open ecology platform that is built as led by an Internet court and which all players in the industry actively participate in – “Balance Chain” electronic evidence blockchain platform. Judge Yi Ran elaborated on the application of blockchain in judicial practice and the problems therewith. Different from Unitrust Time Stamp Authority, which verifies the evidence generation time, BCPROOF calculates the average time based on all nodes. There are three major problems with the application of blockchain in judicial practice: lack of unified rules on judicial identification; lack of special blockchain platform in building the smart court, and insufficient awareness of applying blockchain technology. As of June 30, 2019, among the 118 cases using the “Balance Chain” platform, 36 cases were closed, including 3 cases closed by certification or judgment.

Attorney Wu Guanghong spoke highly of the organization and the effects of the Seminar

Attorney Zhang Xiaojun introduced the basic situation of ZhongYin Internet Dispute Mediation Center

Associate Professor Geng Lin believes that it is necessary to learn Internet technologies during legal education

Attorney Chen Yan presides over the Seminar

The participating attorneys also had a heated discussion with the two judges on the fixation, proving ability and practical operation of electronic evidence in network copyright cases. The colleagues in branch offices also raised questions through the live broadcast system. The Seminar was full of valuable knowledge, being well received by all participants.