| In recent years, the influence of internet has already related to all aspects of human life, but consequently, a number of disputes concerning online virtual property have been caused. Since the first dispute caused by the online game virtual property nationwide in 2003, people have began to face up to relevant issues concerning online virtual property. And in Feb. 2003, Beijing Arctic Ice Company performed a delete operation towards the online virtual property owned by Li Hongchen and disabled his game account in the name of holding that the virtual equipments in Li Hongchen's game account are all replicas, as a result, Li Hongchen took the Company to court, and during the trial, Li Hongchen and the Company both put forward their respective opinions on the ownership of online virtual property, upon trial the court didn't make clear the legal nature of online virtual property, finally, the case was ended through mediation. There have been so many internet disputes emerging gradually, the fundamental reason is that there are still not laws concerning online virtual property in our country till now, which has brought the protection for online virtual property into an awkward situation without a law to follow. In order to protect online virtual property, firstly we should proceed from learning about the online virtual property, and further learn about the legal nature of online virtual property, then, give a legal positioning of online virtual property; secondly, according to the different types of internet disputes, directing at the natures of all kinds of disputes, seek out the applicable solution methods. In the thesis, proceeding from the conceptual characteristics of online virtual property, through evaluating and analyzing the development history of the protection for online virtual property both in Hong Kong, Taiwan and abroad, the conclusion that online virtual property should be protected is drawn. Later on, in the thesis, the attribute of online virtual property is analyzed, firstly, from analysis on the concept and characteristics of property in civil law, the conclusion that online virtual property has the attribute of property is drawn; and on this basis, an exploration and discussion on the legal nature of online virtual property are made, and through a comprehensive analysis on relevant theories concerning online virtual property such as real right theory, obligatory right theory, intellectual right theory, new property theory, debenture theory, come to a conclusion that online virtual property is only an existence in form, and the carrier computer records belonged online virtual property with property attribute should be supposed to adopt the guard method of real right of which the attribute would be analyzed. Dispute of online virtual property between online game operators and online game players has been analyzed from the point of dispute types of it in the final part of this paper, due to the contract existing in both, as is elaborated in detail, and it has been reached that the contract has dual natures of real rights and obligatory rights each other. Through the analysis of characteristics of dispute types on online virtual property, the solution has been presented for characteristics of disputes on different types of online virtual property from the point of tort and contract. The foreign online dispute resolution (ODR) also has been briefly outlined in the final part of the thesis, which may be regarded as a convenient and effective way to solve the disputes concerning online virtual property.
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