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 WIPO Global Awards ceremony was recently held in Geneva, Switzerland.
This year, more than 660 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups from 107 countries applied for the WIPO Global Awards, with four Chinese companies among the 25 shortlists.
Beijing Healinno Medical Technology Co., Ltd, a Chinese company, beat out the competition and has become one of the nine winners. The remaining eight winners are from Argentina, Kenya, South Korea, Kuwait, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand and Turkey. (Beijing Daily, July 15, 2024)
Ele.me shares 10 patents without remuneration
Recently, Ele.me announced that it will open source 10 patents and complete the public listing in the Shanghai Technology Exchange, which is also the first batch of open-source patents publicly listed through the national technology elements market. 7 of the 10 patents are in the field of food safety, 3 are in the field of low-carbon environmental protection, of which 3 are AI-related patents.
The 10 open-source patents are available on the official website of Shanghai Technology Exchange, and the webpage shows that their listing price is zero yuan, with their open source conditions disclosed in the project information.
According to the definition in Patent Open Source Strategy and Risk Prevention and Control authored by the Academic Committee of the CNIPA, patent open source refers to the patent holder's permission for unidentified individuals to utilize any or all of the patents owned by the patent holders in a way of zero royalties to foster the target patent ecosystem under specific conditions. (August 16, 2024, xinmin.cn)
IP-related Data
The Supreme People's Procuratorate: 16,000 individuals suspected of IP infringement crimes were investigated in the first half of the year
Recently, the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) published the data regarding the cases that national procuratorial organs handled from January to June 2024.
For the protection of intellectual property rights, the SPP officials stated that the procuratorial organs conducted investigations into 16,000 individuals suspected of IP infringement crimes during the first half of 2024, a 21.5% increase from the previous year. Of these individuals, over 1,800 were suspected of infringing on trade secrets, counterfeiting patents, or core technologies, and received punishment in accordance with the law.
Procuratorial organs have implemented a comprehensive approach to the consolidation of the evidence system by utilizing voluntary supplementary investigation and early intervention. They have conducted voluntary supplementary investigation in over 400 cases and intervened in over 1,000 cases of IPR infringement in advance.
The procuratorial organs proactively promoted civil and administrative supervision while adhering to the battle against IPR infringement. The number of civil and administrative litigation supervision cases accepted increased by 2.9% year over year, with over 1,000 cases accepted. Of these, 400 prosecutorial appeals and prosecutorial opinions on retrial were issued, which is 6.9 times the number of procuratorial opinions made during the same period last year.
At the same time, it continued to advocate for the punishment of bad faith litigation of intellectual property rights, and put forward supervisory opinions on more than 340 cases of copyright ownership and infringement disputes involving false litigation. While focusing on the protection of the rights and interests of intellectual property rights holders, it also emphasized the protection of social public interests and the rights and interests of other parties. It filed and handled 480 public interest litigation cases in the field of intellectual property; promoted the implementation of the punitive damages system, and filed litigation requests for punitive damages in some cases. (August 8, 2024, thepaper.cn)
China holds over 190,000 valid robotics patents, making up roughly two-thirds of the global total
In August, the 2024 World Robot Conference was held in Beijing.
It is reported that China has emerged as a significant player in global robot science and technology innovation, application expansion and industry governance, with more than 190,000 relevant effective patents, accounting for about two-thirds of the global share.
The data indicates that China has been the world's largest industrial robot market for 11 consecutive years, and the new installed capacity in the past three years accounted for over half of the global total. In the past decade, the density of manufacturing robots has increased by nearly 19 times, with 470 robots per 10,000 workers. (August 22, 2024, Xinhua News)
IP-related policy
Beijing reports its first case involving the validity determination of the Data Intellectual Property Registration Certificate
The Beijing Internet Court recently published the “Top Ten Typical Cases of Service Guaranteeing New Quality Productive Forces”, including the first case in China involving the validity determination of the Data Intellectual Property Registration Certificate. In this case, the court recognized for the first time in a judicial decision the validity of the Data Intellectual Property Registration Certificate in proving data possession. Specifically, the Data Intellectual Property Registration can be used as prima facie evidence to establish that the plaintiff possesses the property rights and interests in the data, or as prima facie evidence of the data collection behavior or the source of legality of the data.
In this case, the Plaintiff, a technology joint-stock company, is a technology innovation enterprise that specializes in data services in the field of artificial intelligence. In this case, the Plaintiff expended a significant amount of personnel and financial resources to record 1,505 hours of Mandarin in order to collect and acquire voice data. In 2021 the Plaintiff discovered that the Defendant, who was also involved in data services in the field of artificial intelligence, unlawfully obtained the data and disseminated it to the public on its official website. This allowed network users to download the data at their discretion.
The Plaintiff stated that the Defendant and the Plaintiff were both market players in the data processing industry and had a competitive relationship. The Plaintiff also contended that the Defendant had committed the infringing behaviors of illegally obtaining, copying, and disseminating the data in question through the network, and that there was subjective fault and out of bad faith. Therefore, the Plaintiff claimed that the Defendant should bear the corresponding legal responsibility, and its behavior constituted unfair competition.
The Beijing Internet Court held that the Plaintiff's behavior of collecting voice data complied with the law; the Data Intellectual Property Rights Registration Certificate submitted by the plaintiff was able to prove that the dataset in question was collected and held by the plaintiff. The defendant's behavior violated the principle of good faith and business ethics in the data service industry, which harmed the Plaintiff's legitimate rights and interests and the interests of consumers. Additionally, the defendant disrupted the order of competition in the data service market.
The court finally ruled that the defendant shall compensate the plaintiff for the economic loss of 100,000 yuan and reasonable expenses of 2,300 yuan. The defendant appealed the first instance judgment, and the second instance dismissed its appeal and upheld the original judgment. (August 28, 2024, Beijing Daily)
