Sunshine Winning Cases were Selected as “2017 Beijing Top Ten Classic Patent Administrative Protection Litigation”

Recently, the Beijing Intellectual Property Protection Association was entrusted by the Beijing Municipal Intellectual Property Office to hold the “2017 Beijing Top Ten Typical Patent Administrative Protection Litigation”. After the public’s online voting, as well as the deliberations and public announcements, Sunshine IP International’s China Quality Focus Magazine "Traceability of Product Quality Anti-Counterfeit Labels, Systems and Traceability of Anti-Counterfeiting Method" Patent Infringement Dispute Case and "Mobike Patent Infringement Disputes Cases" were selected. The Beijing Daily was reported on their April 24th’s issue.

The “Top Ten Cases” selected this time are typical cases that have been selected by the Beijing Municipal Intellectual Property Office for administrative law enforcement cases in 2017 that have a relatively large social impact. This has played a role in enhancing the social awareness and public opinion guidance of intellectual property protection which is a positive effects in all aspects.

In 2017, Beijing further strengthened its law enforcement, improved its intellectual property protection system, and promoted the optimization of the business environment. Beijing Municipal Intellectual Property Office handled more than 1200 cases of patent administrative cases, an increase of 43.6% year-on-year, including a batch of patent dispute cases with relatively large social impacts such as shared bikes, and drones. These have effectively safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of right holders, and the entire society. Awareness of intellectual property protection has improved significantly.

Sunshine has always been responsible for providing high-quality services to customers and rich experience in the field of intellectual property law. We focus through solid professional knowledge and reasonable solutions to effectively help customers make full use of the intellectual property system to consolidate their competitive position in the market. In recent years, Sunshine has also actively guided the rights holders to timely and effectively protect their rights through the administrative processing of patent infringement disputes.

Brief Description of Two Cases

China Quality Focus Magazine "Traceability of Product Quality Anti-Counterfeit Labels, Systems and Traceability of Anti-Counterfeiting Method" Patent Infringement Dispute Case

In this case, China Quality Focus Magazine implemented patent infringement through its product traceability platform (3.15 anti-counterfeiting traceability platform). In the mediation procedure of patent infringement disputes, the defendants, China Quality Focus Magazine and Sichuan HAOERLANG Liquor Co., Ltd., claimed the prior art defense based on the anti-counterfeit labels and system sales contracts and contract attachments. According to the trial of the Beijing Municipal Intellectual Property Office: according to the usual rules of commercial operation, the contract attachment is an integral part of the contract, the contractual parties will usually be affixed to the contract and attachments with seal on the perforation, and no seal on the perforation on both the anti-counterfeiting mark and the label design stamped together with the contract, and were not even stamped with any company stamps; and the signatory on the anti-counterfeit mark and the label design were unknown and not yet attend the court. Therefore, the final version of the anti-counterfeit label and the label design cannot be endorsed as an attachment to the contract and thus cannot confirm the finalization of the anti-counterfeit label if there is no other evidence to prove the finalization of the relevant anti-counterfeit label and the relevance of the label design to the contract. And it also cannot be proved that they were actually made public, nor the publication date. Therefore, the respondent's prior art defense is not substantiated.

In the end, Beijing Municipal Intellectual Property Office determined that China Quality Focus Magazine and Sichuan HAOERLANG Liquor Co., Ltd. infringement were established in Beijing (2017) No. 1016-27, 28 and 29 and ordered them to stop the infringement.

In addition, the period of this case lasts less than four months from the petition date to the closing, through the patent infringement dispute mediation procedures to resolve patent disputes, which greatly shortened the time of the conclusion of the infringement and help made huge contribution for the client to win a prominent competitive advantage over business opponents.

Mobike Patent Infringement Disputes Cases

On March 3rd, Shenzhen Lingyun Technology Co., Ltd.   filed a patent infringement dispute administrative processing request at Beijing Intellectual Property Office, advocating Mobike Technology Co., Ltd. infringed its "Internet access temporary device authorization device and method" invention patent, and requested Beijing Intellectual Property Office to order to stop the infringement.

On March 21, the relative person in charge of Mobike responded by saying: "we do not agree with the petitioner's request and will actively seek a solution to the matter through legal channels." Mobike subsequently entrusted Sunshine Intellectual Property International Co., Ltd. to handle this case. In the verdict of the case organized by the Beijing Intellectual Property Office, we advocate non-infringement defense and do not consider it as infringing. Our firm has fully analyzed that the patentee may argue that the user and the temporary user may be the same person in the administrative procedure of the patent infringement dispute. Therefore, while making a non-infringement defense, we also filed a patent invalidation request to the Patent Reexamination Board of the State Intellectual Property Office.

On September 27, the Patent Reexamination Board organized a public hearing on this case. The case is the sixth case in which the Patent Reexamination Board organized the public hearing of major cases. Since the invalidation claim mainly relates to the related technology for setting the unlocking right of the user in the access control system of the internet, it can directly authenticate the unlocking user to authorize their using qualification, which belongs to the core technology in the remote unlocking technology. Therefore, there is a significant impact to the industry, involving major economic interests, and social influence. Thus, the Patent Reexamination Board set up a five-person collegial panel for this trial, and all the members are either experts from the relevant technical field and legal experts as well.

The user and the temporary user in the disputed patent claim are not the same person. Therefore, according to the principle of "no estoppel", the patent owner can no longer claim the user in the administrative proceeding of patent infringement and the temporary user is the same person, it is impossible to determine the establishment of infringement, therefore the petitioner withdraw the request the day before the oral hearing of the patent infringement dispute administrative proceedings. Sunshine perfectly combined the patent infringement dispute administrative procedures and patent invalidation declare procedures, contributed to end the case as soon as possible, which is a great significance these internet innovative companies such as Mobike.

Sunshine litigation team has rich practical experience in providing targeted legal services to all kinds of enterprises in our country. With many years of rich experience in intellectual property litigation and invalidation practices and providing clients with high-quality legal services, many achievements have been made, and won the praise of the industry and customer recognition.