Lower litigation costs or higher level of courts

Since the Supreme People's Court (SPC) issued its first notice granting several district courts the right to hear intellectual property cases, it has been enlarging the scope of the district courts that hear those cases. In a recent notice, the SPC revised the monetary standards for allocating first instance IP civil cases to different levels of the people's courts. This effectively means that more cases will be heard by the lower district courts, giving rise to concern as to their ability to deal with those cases effectively.