Recently, our firm won the first instance of an administrative litigation case for invalidation of an invention patent, in which it is ruled that the invention patent should be comp...
Introduction In the chemical field, it is difficult to seek invalidation of a patent claiming to have achieved unexpected technical effect. This case provides a strategy for success...
The first counterattack! BeiGene sued the U.S generic company for patent infringement
Recently, BeiGene filed patent infringement lawsuits against Sandoz and MSN in the United States. This move is regarded as the first counterattack by domestic innovative pharmaceutical enterprises in overseas marketplace, which has aroused widespread concern in the industry.
Established in Beijing in 2010, BeiGene is a global oncology innovation company, focusing on developing and commercializing innovative molecularly targeted and tumor immunotherapy drugs. At present, the company has been listed on the SSE STAR MARKET, the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Ltd. and NASDAQ in the United States.
Previously, Sandoz and MSN attempted to challenge the market position by producing generics. They filed an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), challenging the invalidity, nonenforcement or non-infringement of individual patents for Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK).
In response, BeiGene decided to take legal action and filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Sandoz and MSN. They hold that the companies' filing of ANDAs infringed BTK's patent rights, and are seeking a permanent injunction to prevent the two companies from commercializing a generic of BTK until the patent expires. (Mar. 12th, 2024, JRJ.com)
Huawei holds onto its top spot as the biggest EP patent applicant for a third consecutive year
Recently, the European Patent Office (EPO) released the Patent Index 2023. According to the statistics, in 2023, the EPO received a record 199,275 patent applications, an increase of 2.9% over the previous year. The largest source countries of patent applications/regions are the United States, Germany, Japan, China, and South Korea and so on. A total of 20,735 patent applications were filed by Chinese companies or individuals, up 8.8% from 2022.
It is worth mentioning that Huawei holds onto its top spot as the biggest EP patent applicant for a third consecutive year, followed by Samsung, LG, Qualcomm, Ericsson and Siemens. (Mar. 20th, 2024, Kuai Technology)
Anti-Unfair Competition
MiHoYo wins 2 million yuan damages in the unfair competition lawsuit
Recently, Beijing Shijingshan Court concluded the case where the plaintiff Shanghai miHoYo Co., Ltd. (referred to as miHoYo) sued a Beijing technology company and others for copyright infringement and unfair competition. The first instance court found in the judgment that the defendant constituted copyright infringement and unfair competition, and ruled the three defendants to stop the infringement immediately and compensated the plaintiff miHoYo for economic losses of 2 million yuan and reasonable costs 60,000 yuan.
The court held that the plaintiff miHoYo enjoyed the copyright of all art materials and game pictures in the “Genshin Impact”. The “Genshin Impact” has won several awards such as "the Best Mobile Game of 2021", with a large number of users, high popularity and great influence.
The defendant operated a WeChat public account of introducing the “Genshin Impact”, developed and operated WeChat Mini Programs and applications specifically for the “Genshin Impact”. Its business scope and users highly overlap with the plaintiff’s, and it should be determined that there is a competitive relationship between the two sides. The defendant prominently used the "Genshin Impact", namely "Genshin Impact Creative Workshop", as the name of the WeChat public account involved in the case, and published advertisements with “Genshin Impact " as the title of articles. The above behavior obviously is commercial behavior, which is likely to cause confusion and misidentification amongst relevant public, misleading the public into believe that there is a specific connection between the plaintiff and the defendant, such as commercial cooperation and licensing. In addition, the defendant directly used the login interface of “Genshin Impact” as the interface of its application developed specifically for the “Genshin Impact”. This may also result in confusion and misidentification in the sense of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, so it should be recognized as counterfeiting and confusion according to Article 6 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.
According to this, the Shijingshan Court made the judgement above. (Mar. 27th, 2024, WeChat Public Account of IP Fore Front)
Statistic
The industrialization rate of Chinese enterprises' invention patents reaches over 50% for the first time
Recently, the CNIPA disclosed at a regular press conference that in 2023, the industrialization rate of Chinese enterprises for invention patents reached 51.3%, with an increase of 3.2% over the previous year, and has been staying in a steady growth trend for five consecutive years.
In 2023, the industrialization rate of invention patents of the national high-tech enterprises reached 57.6%, with an increase of 1.5% over the previous year and 19.5% higher than that of non-national high-tech enterprises.
In order to further promote the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the CNIPA and other five departments recently jointly issued the Implementation Plan of Patent Industrialization to Promote the Growth of SMEs. (Mar. 29th, 2024, Chinanews.com)
Enterprises on Science and Technology Innovation Board have an average of 128 granted invention patents with an increase of 5.3% quarter-on-quarter
According to the observation data of the Science and Technology Innovation Board in the first quarter of 2024 recently released by the Patsnap Innovation Research Center, the average number of patent applications, the average number of valid patents and the average number of granted invention patents on the Science and Technology board have steadily increased, of which the average number of granted invention patents has the highest quarter-on-quarter increase, reaching 5.3%.
According to the data, as of March 31, the total number of patent applications of 570 listed enterprises on the Science and Technology Innovation Board was over 245,000, the total number of valid patents was over 135,000, and the total number of granted invention patents was over 72,000. The average number of patent applications per enterprise was about 431, the average number of valid patents was about 238, and the average number of granted invention patents was about 128.
According to the classification of strategic emerging industries, 570 listed enterprises on the Science and Technology Innovation Board are mainly distributed in the five major industries of new generation information technology, biology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new materials and new energy. There are 231, 116, 83, 63, and 28 enterprises respectively, with a total number of patent applications of over 110,000, 39,000, 43,000, 14,000, and 18,000 respectively.
Among the five major industries mentioned above, from the average number of patent applications by enterprises, the ranking is new energy, high-end equipment manufacturing, new generation information technology, biology and new materials industries, with approximate 664, 525, 477, 342 and 223 patents respectively. (Apr. 10th, 2024, STCN)
