China's Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court on Feb. 22 released the list of top 10 exemplary cases of enforcing rights of scientific and technological innovators.
Shenzhen TPOWER Semiconductor Co., Ltd. v. Foshan Blue Rocket Electronics Co., Ltd., Shanghai Gcore Integrated Circuit Design Co., Ltd.
Case summary: The court found that Blue Rocket and Gcore infringed the layout design of an integrated circuit developed by TPOWER and ordered the two defendants to pay 3 million yuan ($470,000) in damages to the plaintiff.
Jining Luohe Network Technology Co., Ltd. v. Guangzhou Wanyou Network Technology Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Guanzhunhang Technology Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Aositan Technology Co., Ltd., Xiangyun Industrial (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.
Case summary: Luo Di developed the source code of an application called VirtualApp (VA) to be hosted on GitHub.com under the third version of the GNU General Public License (GPLV3). The GPL is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. Luo Di stopped updating the code on (VA) to be hosted on GitHub.com under the third version of the GNU General Public License (GPLV3). The GPL is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. Luo Di stopped updating the code on GitHub.com in December 2017 and assigned the code to plaintiff Luohe which he is a shareholder of for commercial use. Defendant TPOWER developed some paid WeChat-compatible applications using Luo Di's source code hosted on GitHub.com. The court found that TPOWER violated the GPL by abusing the free source sode owned by Luohe and ordered it to pay 500,000 yuan ($79,000) in damages to the plaintiff. The claims against the other three defendants serving TPOWER as payment collectors of its paid applications were dimissed.
Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd., Shenzhen Unit of Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd. v. Sisvel International S.A., S.I.SV.EL. (Hong Kong) Ltd.
Case summary: Oppo filed a lawsuit against Sisvel before the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court and claimed that Sisvel abused its dominance by charging an excessive licensing fee for its standard-essential patents (SEPs). Sisvel alleged that it had already sued Oppo in the UK to confirm the reasonableness of its licensing fee, and, to avoid overlapping jurisdiction over the same issues, only the UK court had jurisdiction over the case. In dismissing Sisvel's appeal, the SPC of China held that UK lawsuits could not deprive Chinese courts of jurisdiction since the parties' jural relationships, facts and grounds in the two cases were not exactly the same. The Chinese courts could claim jurisdiction also because the infringement lawsuits filed by Sisvel in the UK might directly, substantively and significantly eliminate or restrict Oppo's participation in market competition in China. This case clarified the jurisdiction rules over antitrust disputes in the context of SEP.
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. v. Jabil Circuit Electronics (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd., SolarEdge Technologies (China) CO., Ltd., Guangzhou SolarEdge Machinery Technical Consulting Co., Ltd.
Case summary: The court found that Israel-headquartered SolarEdge's Shanghai-based subsidiary and Guangzhou-based subsidiary infringed plaintiff Huawei's patent for solar inverters by commissioning Jabil to manufacture and export infringing products and ordered the three defendants to pay 50 million yuan ($7.9 million) in damages to Huawei.
Milliken & Company v. Xuzhou Haitian Petrochemical Co., Ltd., Dongguan Aimili Plastic Technology Co., Ltd.
Case summary: The court found that defendants Haitian and Aimili didn't infringe plaintiff American industrial manufacturer Milliken & Company's patent ZL201180068470.6 for lack of evidence.
Anthura B.V., Kunming Anthura Horticulture Co., Ltd. v. Guangzhou Panyu Keyi Agriculture Technology Development Co., Ltd.
Case summary: The court found that the anthurium variety defendant Keyi cultivated didn't infringe the anthurium variety plaintiffs Netherlands-based Anthura and its Kunming-based subsidiary had patented. The court agreed to deploy the results of the DNA-based testing and distinctness, uniformity, and stability (DUS) assessments submitted by the plaintiffs as evidence.
Shanghai Tongling New Energy Technology Development Co., Ltd. v. Foshan Baiteli Agriculture Ecological Technology Co., Ltd.
Case summary: The court found that plaintiff Tongling was entitled to the fund of 900,000 yuan ($140,000) it had advanced at the request of defendant Baiteli when the co-development cooperation was terminated between the two parties. The court ordered the defendant to refund the advanced payment to the plaintiff and dimissed the plaintiff's additional claim of 1.5 million yuan ($240,000) as compensation for its share of the work in the co-development.
Guangzhou Fullriver Battery New Technology Co., Ltd. v. He
Case summary: The court found defendant He, an ex-employee of plaintiff Fullriver, stole the company's patent for a technology for lithium batteries for e-cigarette devices. The court ordered the defendant to pay 300,000 yuan ($47,000) in damages to the plaintiff.
Dongguan Kaihua Electronic Co., Ltd. v. Tongfang Co., Ltd., Tongfang International Information Technology (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., Dongguan Jingdong Lisheng Trading Co., Ltd.
Case summary: The court found the doctrine of equivalents didn't apply in this case and the notebook computers the three defendants manufactured and distributed didn't infringe the plaintiff's patent ZL201610802371.0.
LeDiamond Opto Corporation v. Zhongshan Mago Lighting Co., Ltd.
Case summary: The court found defendant Mago acted with malice and intentionally infringed Taiwan-based LED manufacturer LeDiamond's patent ZL201420776830.9 repetitively and punished the defendant under the terms of punitive damages of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China as punitive damages provisions were absent from patent law before June 1, 2021.
http://www.chinaipmagazine.com/en/news-show.asp?id=12421
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