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Patent Invalidity Defense Conditionally Allowed by Supreme People's Court (SPC)

Author:IP March Click: Time:2022-11-21 13:00:00

China adopts a bifurcated system for patent infringement cases, i.e., infringement and patent validity are handled separately by different authorities. By now, there has not been a change but in a recent case, the SPC provided a new way of handling cases where the validity of the patent involved is questionable.

 

The patentee, Zudian filed a patent infringement lawsuit with Shenzhen Intermediate Court (first instance), claiming that the defendants Simsukian and Youdian had infringed its utility model patent. All three parties are Shenzhen based companies. The defendant raised a patent invalidity defense on the grounds that another patent in the patent family was already invalid and the patent involved is invalid as their claimed technical solutions are very similar.

 

The Shenzhen court held that the patent involved in the case was obviously or most likely to be invalid, and supported the defendant’s patent invalidity defense, and rejected the plaintiff’s claim. The plaintiff appealed to the SPC.

 

The SPC held that in a patent infringement case, the court may conduct a limited review of the stability of the patent right but it should not determine the validity of the patent right itself and should not directly confirm that the defendant's patent invalidity defense is established. In other words, the patent invalidity defense has no legal basis.

 

However, the Supreme People's Court gave a new way to deal with such cases where the validity of the patent involved is questionable. The court ruled to dismiss the plaintiff's lawsuit due to the obvious lack of stability of the patent right involved in the case, under the condition that the parties voluntarily made a compensation commitment for future benefits.

 

The patentee's commitment is that if the patent right is declared invalid, it will return all the actual proceeds of the relevant infringement case and pay the corresponding interest; The defendants' commitment is that if the patent right is confirmed to be valid, it will pay all the compensation payable in the infringement case and the corresponding interest.


Patent Invalidity Defense Conditionally Allowed by Supreme People's Court (SPC)
China adopts a bifurcated system for patent infringement cases, i.e., infringeme
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Contact Us

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Postcode:100190
Tel: 86-10-62966619
Fax: 86-10-62983448
Website:www.ipmarch.cn
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