Hi folks, I read an interesting story in the Chinese media today: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201809/10/WS5b95b8e4a31033b4f46550e9.html "China opened a second internet court on Sunday to address the rising disputes and problems caused by its ever-growing reliance on cyberspace. The Beijing Internet Court, situated in a Fengtai district technology zone in the southwest of the capital, will mainly handle internet and intellectual property rights cases, such as disputes involving online loans, online shopping contracts and online copyright issues, the Supreme People's Court wrote in an online judicial interpretation. The IP rulings of the district-level court, which has 38 judges, can be appealed at the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, and its other cases at the Beijing No 4 Intermediate People's Court. .... Liu Shuhan, a judge at the court, said one of its key features is that litigants can handle their lawsuits entirely online－they are not required to go to the court in person at any point from the case filing to the hearing." I think this reinforces the call to eliminate the URS and/or the UDRP (one of the proposals I submitted last week was for the elimination of the URS), given that the court alternative appears to be fast, convenient, and inexpensive (at least for Chinese parties; for the URS, that was a significant fraction of disputes). As more and more jurisdictions modernize their court systems to include online offerings like this, the justification for creating alternatives to the courts decreases. Sincerely, George Kirikos 416-588-0269 http://www.leap.com/