In the court trial, XET announced that Apple has implemented a patent held by its iPhone 6 series, iPhone 7 series and iPad tablet, and according to the actual sales of Apple's infringing products and infringing products The Company filed a claim of RMB150 million and stated that it would reserve the right to increase the amount claimed or claim separately for the direct or indirect losses sustained according to the actual sales amount of infringing products for the duration of infringement of the defendant.
The case was widely watched before the formal hearing, not only because it is the first case of "China standard essential patent" in the field of ICT - after Xijiagetongsupon Sony's patent infringement case, Xietong Jietong launched the patent on the same case And the defendant is currently the world's largest market capitalization of nearly trillion dollars, but also because the case led to a series of 'case' - which in the outside world also indicates that the hearing of the series of cases Will be protracted and costly.
Dispute arises from a standard essential patent
The dispute between Xeon Jietong and Apple Inc began with a patent infringement lawsuit filed with a wireless network security protocol technology in April 2016, claiming that it was developed and held 15 years ago and named "a wireless LAN mobile device secure access (Patent No. 02139508.X) was infringed. Xeon Jietong sued Apple Computer Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and Xi'an Gome Electronics Co., Ltd. for its patent infringement in Shaanxi Province The Higher People's Court asked the court to order the three defendants to immediately stop the patent infringement, stop selling cell phone products that infringe on the patent rights of the Xietong Jietong and compensate for economic losses.
The patent in question is a core patent of WAPI (Wireless Local Area Network Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure), which is developed by Xitai Jietong R & D. According to the domestic filing date of the patent in 2002, the patent will expire in 5 years .
At present, the global WLAN has formed a relatively uniform technical architecture, but the security technology is divided into two development routes: one is the US-led IEEE 802.11i standard, and the other is China's leading WAPI standard (WAPI technology in 2003 by the national standard Adopted.) Based on the above technical route to form a wireless local area network, the industry were referred to as Wi-Fi networks and WAPI networks, while the case involved patents WAPI standard is one of the necessary patents.In this year's October 16, Wi -Fi The highest security level protection mechanism WPA2 technical standards have been flawed a major loophole.
It is also understood that in order to promote the application process of WAPI in the global market, in May 2005, Xitong Jitong submitted a patent application for WAPI technology in the United States. From 2010 to 2013, the patent application became the fourth consecutive China- On 24 October 2013, the patent application was finally authorized in the United States under the top concerns of China and the United States.In addition, on June 1, 2010, WAPI core supported the identification of the core technical entity of the ternary peer-to-peer security architecture (TePA-AC) has become an international standard, which is the first international standard in the field of network security in China.
In the trial, the plaintiff pointed out that Apple had signed a patent agreement with XD Jietong in 2010. Both parties defined the patent license for the five-year period from 2010 to 2014 in accordance with the principle of "fairness, reasonableness and non-discrimination" fee.
After the expiration of the contract by the end of 2014, 'After repeated negotiations by Xeon Jietong, Apple refused to substantive negotiations with the plaintiff on the patent license, but for various reasons malicious delay refusing to pay the relevant expenses.' Experienced with Apple After 16 months of discussion but without any substantive progress, the Xietong Jietong side considered all the moves of Apple as a purely malicious negotiation and initiated a patent infringement lawsuit.
The three major focus of the case
During the trial, the two sides made their own evidence and statements on respective grounds, but they did not hold any debate in the court.
The plaintiff's acting lawyer first explained the R & D application of the Xietong Jietong Company and the involved patent and made a statement on the specific reasons for the defendant's infringement of the patent involved.
The plaintiff's attorney pointed out: 'The plaintiff believes that the defendant's long-term, large-scale and deliberate implementation of the above-mentioned act has seriously damaged the plaintiff's legitimate rights and interests based on the above patent right. Subjective maliciousness is obvious and the IPR caused by the plaintiff's heavy investment can not be Get a reasonable return, should bear the corresponding legal responsibility.
Subsequently, Apple's attorney argued that the plaintiff's patent was not a standard-essential patent and the allegedly infringing product did not infringe the patent involved. The original patent license granted by the defendant was still valid. The plaintiff had no right to claim the cessation of infringement. The injunction should not be applied in this case, The plaintiff claimed that all did not hold.After two and a half hours after the statement of opinion, the presiding judge will be the focus of controversy between the two sides summarized as three points: the patent involved is the standard essential patent; whether constitute infringement, whether and how to infringe Behavior; if the infringement, tort liability how to bear.To this, both the plaintiff and the defendant expressed no objection.The presiding judge then announced, next mainly for the judgment of the infringement.
Subsequently, around whether the patent in question was the standard essential patent or whether the defendant was infringing upon the rights of the defendants, the two parties conducted the proof and the statement of opinion through multimedia demonstration, testimony of expert assistants and verbal explanation by lawyers respectively.
Finally, after a trial of two and a half hours, the presiding judge announced the conclusion of the hearing and the next opening time will be announced separately.
There are cases in the case
After Xietuan Jietong sued Apple for patent infringement in April 2016, the latter immediately launched a patent invalidation request against the Xietong Jietong patent involved in the case. In May 2016, Apple did not fully disclose the specification and lacked the necessary technical features , The patent right was not supported by the manual, the patent reexamination board was not provided with the reasons for the novelty and inventive step, etc. On February 20, 2017, the Patent Reexamination Board made the decision No. 31501 , Dismissed all Apple's invalid requests to maintain the validity of the patent involved, and as a result Apple rejected the suit and filed a lawsuit to the Beijing Intellectual Property Court requesting the court to revoke the decision and order the Patent Reexamination Board to re-issue Make a decision to review the case is under further investigation.
After the patent invalidation request was initiated, Apple successively launched a lawsuit for 'patent royalty rate' and 'abuse of market dominance' for Xeonjet.
On September 29, 2016, Apple Inc., Apple Computer (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and Apple Electronics Trade (Beijing) Co., Ltd. filed a lawsuit against Xidian Jitong about the dispute over the necessary royalties in Beijing Intellectual Property Court The defendant granted the plaintiff relevant standard necessary patents and patent applications in accordance with the principle of fairness, reasonableness and non-discrimination and requested the court to determine the royalty rate.
Information obtained from the court hearing on November 14 shows that Apple Computer and Apple Computer (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. filed a lawsuit over XD Jietong abuse of market dominance in the Beijing Intellectual Property Court.
During the court hearing on the same day, the plaintiff's attorney pointed out that Apple has used the "essential principles of fairness, reasonableness, non-discrimination" and "ban" in the aforesaid two lawsuits against Xietun Jietong for their involvement in the necessary patents The trial of the terms and terminology was one of the reasons why the plaintiff considered the defendant Apple Inc. to recognize the use of a standard essential patent of Xitelitong in its products.
In this trial, the plaintiff attorney also mentioned that in the previous Sony case involving the same patent dispute in the trial, Apple provided an important help to Sony illegally, to the It illegally leaked the commercial information of the plaintiff in order to achieve the purpose of boycotting the royalty payment.The plaintiff's attorney's statement was not in court.
In June 2015, XHTY introduced a patent infringement lawsuit against Sony Mobile Communications Products (China) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Sony) for the same patent infringement case and obtained the first trial on March 22, 2017 Winning the verdict, the verdict had a huge impact on intellectual property academia and practice.
Subsequently, Sony refused to accept the verdict and filed an appeal.According to the verification and disclosure of industry insiders, Sony on July 14, 2017, based on 28 US Code § 1782 filed a request to the California Northern District Court (5: 17-mc-80090), asked Retrieve a license agreement between Apple and Xeon Jietong from Apple Inc. and demand an expedited settlement - a move Sony is supposed to use for proof of appeal in the North High Court of Sony.
According to a court order from the Northern California District Court that Sony finally granted Sony's application, Sony's application was initially vetoed by the court, and Sony later resubmitted the application, which the court found quickly granted Sony's application given that Apple did not object to submitting the relevant documents. Sony promptly transferred to Apple should assume the obligation of confidentiality of third-party documents.
The official of XD Jietong told the reporter of "China Science News" that in response to this patent infringement dispute, Apple has always taken unlawful and even illegitimate means to cope with this situation and they will resolutely defend their rights and interests.
There are cases in the case, both the case of Apple itself, or the second instance of Sony case will increase the difficulty, or even a challenge.