The Oaks vote for infringement again, why is the patent dispute in the home appliance industry frequently?

Picture source: Oriental IC

After a lapse of half a year, Oaks complained that Gree violated the invention patent dispute cases, and then waved.

Recently, Oaks announced his withdrawal at the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court. The Nanchang Intermediate People's Court ruling showed that Oaks filed an application for "voluntary withdrawal of prosecution" to Nanchang Intermediate Court, and the court allowed Oaks to withdraw.

The results of the same case in the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court are very different. In December 2021, the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court determined that Gree and related dealers had two cases of infringing Oaks invention patent rights. The judgment Gree compensated about 167 million yuan.

In the same case, why did Oaks quietly withdraw the lawsuit in Nanchang Intermediate Court after winning the lawsuit in Ningbo Intermediate Court? On this issue, the Blue Whale Finance reporter sent an interview letter to Oaks. As of press time, the other party had no response.

Oaks voting Gree patent infringement case in Nanchang withdrawal

The dispute between the two started in December 2018. At that time, Oaks purchased a compressor patent from Toshiba, Japan. According to the official website of the National Intellectual Property Office, Toshiba Cairi applied for the patent called the "compressor" in 2000, which expired in September 2020.

One month after purchasing this patent in Oaks, he sued Gree patent infringement at the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court; in October 2019, Oaks once again issued the same lawsuit in Nanchang Intermediate Court.

It is reported that after the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court accepted the above case, Gree had proposed jurisdictional objections; after being rejected by the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court, Gree was refused to appeal to the Supreme People's Court, and he was rejected and maintained the original ruling.

In December 2021, the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court conducted a public trial on the above case. The Ningbo Intermediate People's Court determined that Gree and related dealers had two cases of infringing Oaks invention patent rights to take effect, and judged Gree's compensation of 96 million and 70.6 million, totaling about 167 million yuan.

On the other side, Oaks was withdrawn in Nanchang Intermediate Court in June this year. The civil ruling of the Nanchang Intermediate Court showed that Oaks applied to the Nanchang Intermediate Court to withdraw the prosecution against Gree and Suning, and the court allowed Oaks to withdraw.

In the same patent case, why did Oaks withdraw the lawsuit in the Nanchang Intermediate Court after Oaks won the lawsuit in Ningbo Intermediate Court? In this regard, the Blue Whale Finance reporter sent an interview letter to Oaks. As of press time, the other party had no response.

Analysts in the industry believe that the most obvious operation of this dispute is that Oaks, a Chinese company who does not produce compressors, was in a hurry to buy it for eight months when the validity period of patented Japan. Different, open a lawsuit against Gree.

"Related information shows that within 19 years before transferring to Oaks after this patent application, all global inverter compressor companies are using this universal technology and have never occurred in infringement. In October 2020, China refrigerated in October 2020, China refrigerated in October 2020, China Refrigeration in October 2020, China Refrusting The Society has organized an expert demonstration meeting, and the technical experts at the meeting agreed that this so -called 'patent' technology belongs to the universal technology of the compressor industry. "The above person said.

The two have a long history of grievances, with more than 550 litigation documents

Why does Oaks operate like this? In fact, its grievances with Gree can have a long history, which can be traced back to 2015.

A reporter from Blue Whale Finance inquired about the China Referee Document Network that the lawsuit between Oaks and Gree was first in December 2015. The two related documents are as high as 567, of which include 161 disputes in patent categories. At the same time, there are product infringement, behavioral infringement, and illegal possession.

Attorney Zeng Hui, an agent entrusted by Gree Electric, also revealed that since 2015, relevant patent lawsuits have been accepted, as of currently accepting three batches.

In the two years of 2017 and 2018, Oaks was judged by the court for a total of 27 patent rights, and a total of nearly 120 million yuan was judged. Among them, there have been 26 cases of the final trial, and the amount of compensation has been 56.7 million yuan. There is also a preliminary trial of 60 million cases. It also needs to wait for the second instance of the Supreme People's Court.

At the same time, Oaks also issued a number of lawsuits against Gree. Except for the patent infringement case tried on the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court mentioned above, the remaining lawsuits Oaks ended due to withdrawal or defeat (excluding Gree's active withdrawal).

Among them, the most famous is Gree's case of Oaks infringement of patent rights. It is reported that this infringement was derived from January 2017. On the grounds of infringing its patent right, Gree complained to Ningbo Oaks Trowth Co., Ltd. and his subsidiary Guangzhou Jingdong Trading Co., Ltd. to the court, requesting that Oaks stopped infringement and destroyed. Inventory and molds are compensated for 40 million yuan.

What caused the case to arouse the case was a real -name report issued by Gree. In June 2019, Gree issued a Weibo that some models of Oaks produced by Oaks have a large gap with its publicity and nominal energy values, and the detection conclusions of energy efficiency ratio and refrigeration consumption power are unqualified.

These products are still sold through the mainstream e -commerce platform and physical stores. Oaks' behavior seriously violates relevant regulations and is suspected of constituting unqualified products and huge sales.

After 40 months, the China Magistrate Documents Network issued a ruling in April 2020. The Guangdong Higher People's Court found that Oaks had a malicious infringement of Oaks and sentenced Oaks to compensate Gree 40 million yuan.

Why do the home appliance industry frequently dispute patent disputes?

In recent years, with the increasingly complete patent construction of enterprises and the improvement of the public's awareness of intellectual property protection, the patent disputes in the home appliance industry have become more frequent, and the amount of compensation has also risen. For example, the above -mentioned Oaks and Gree compressor patent cases, Ningbo Intermediate Court made a large number of large judgments of 167 million yuan.

Relevant persons in Midea pointed out that "Patent litigation in the field of home appliances in recent years is relatively frequent and corporate consciousness is strong. Because this field does have the right to speak in China, there are many innovative technologies and fierce market competition, so the conflict of patent will be very large ","

Guo Zhenpeng, chief intellectual property adviser to Midea Group, has previously revealed that in the past ten years, the home appliance industry has more than 300 patent lawsuits in China.

Guo Zhenpeng said that the patent dispute in the home appliance industry is moving from the technical infringement of the previous product design technology and the technical infringement of the core components of the upstream.

"This is related to the changes in domestic industries. In the field of home appliances, there were many manufacturing in the field of home appliances, but now it has extended to key core parts of the upstream. The changes in the industry will inevitably bring innovation changes and eventually lead to changes in intellectual property protection." Guo Zhenpeng believes.

Why do the home appliance industry patent disputes frequently? Some analysts said that the main reason is that most of the scope of patent protection in the field involves exterior, structure and other technologies, which are easy to imitate; home appliance manufacturing companies generally use OEM and ODM methods. It is easier and low -cost, and the amount of corporate infringement judgment also needs to be improved; large companies have enhanced their innovation, but the industry homogeneity is still serious.

Zhang Jianfeng, Executive Deputy Secretary -General of the China Home Electrical Electric Association, believes that this reflects that home appliance companies have strengthened their awareness of self -protection such as patented technology and brand image. At the same time, corporate differentiation and innovation capabilities need to be improved and the market competition environment has deteriorated.

This shows that if home appliance companies want to achieve more stable and long -term development, in addition to continuous innovation and establishing differentiated competitiveness, they should continue to maintain a high level of self -protection awareness and ability.

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