Traditionally civil, administrative and criminal IPR cases have been heard by the Intellectual Property, Administrative and Criminal Divisions of the courts, respectively. For instance, both the IPR Tribunals and the Administrative Tribunals of the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s courts were entitled to exercise jurisdiction over IPR administrative cases involving patent and trademark rights grants and determinations. The issue is that different divisions may apply different criteria to the same case.
Xu Jing & Zhang Hairuo, IP Litigation, King & Wood