Yesterday, Hisense Group announced that its listed companies have filed lawsuits against courts in Beijing and Qingdao, accusing Sharp of up to a dozen of TV products sold domestically in China that infringe the patent of Hisense.
In the complaint, Hisense asked the court to order Sharp to immediately stop infringing its patent rights, stop manufacturing, selling, promising sales of infringing products and destroying infringing products. The two courts have formally accepted the case.
This half-year downtown hubbub Sharp brand competition case, did not come to the end of the meaning.
Case combing
On June 9, 2017, Sharp filed suit against four Hisense companies, including Hisense Group Co., Ltd. in California courts and New York State courts, alleging that Hisense sold its low-cost and low-cost LCD TVs to the SHARP brand in the United States, undermining Sharp's brand image, Asked Hisense to stop using the SHARP trademark, and at least 100 million U.S. dollars in damage compensation.After that, Sharp replaced his lawyer in California, amended the petition, and appealed Hisense International Marketing (Hong Kong) Americas Investment Limited as the defendant.
On June 16, Sharp filed a lawsuit in the New York court, but the lawsuit in California's High Court continued on the grounds that it focused on litigation in the California case.
On July 3, at the request of Hisense, a multinational dispute, the trial of the California lawsuit was handed over to the federal court, which was subsequently moved to California's High Court.
On July 17, Sharp on the grounds of Hisense's patent-infringement of smart TV in the United States re-prosecuted the latter in the Federation of the Southern District of New York in the United States and demanded the ban on the sale of the product.
On August 18, Hisense's application for arbitration by the Singapore International Arbitration Center for the dispute over the brand licensing agreement between both parties resulted in the International Arbitration Center ordering a ban on both parties to discuss the dispute in public, but the brand dispute did not end there.
At the end of August, Sharp, with Hisense's patent infringement, demanded that the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) investigate the Chinese Hisense Group.
In September, the U.S. ITC agreed to investigate Sharp's claim that Hisense may infringe SHARP's network television patents.
In October, the U.S. Northern District Federal District Court formally rejected Sharp's move to move the case back to the High Court of California, but no judgment was made on the dispute between the two parties.
Hot potato
As we all know, Sharp is Japan's leading electrical and electronics companies, is the inventor of liquid crystal displays However, over-investment in liquid crystal, but also the father of liquid crystal dragged into trouble.
Sharp has invested heavily in Osaka's first 10-generation line 堺 LCD factory, however, to catch up with the economic crisis in 2008, the market demand decline.In the face of such circumstances, in order to avoid the fiscal deficit caused by not working, Sharp insisted continued production of liquid crystal screen.
At the same time, South Korea dollar devaluation, LCD panel prices more advantages.And SHARP's RGBY new technology is not how the market recognized, there have been failed to timely delivery of bad credit history.
Sharp internal situation, Sharp plunged into years of loss situation.Subsequently, in August this year, Sharp was Foxconn parent company Hon Hai to 388.8 billion yen (about 3.8 billion US dollars) to obtain a 66% stake, then began For the former drastically reform.
However, the problem is that before selling Sharp Hon Hai, some overseas businesses have been sold to other companies.
On September 26, 2014, Sharp announced that it will license television production and sales in Europe to UMC (Universal Media Corporation), a Slovak television manufacturer.
On July 31, 2015, Sharp and Hisense jointly announced that the latter will acquire a 100% stake in Sharp Mexico and acquire Sharp's brand rights and all channel resources in the Americas except Brazil for five years.
Hon Hai took over Sharp, the first thing to do is to change from the previous bad selling business into the first camp on consumer electronics, which is not dependent on the Chinese market alone can be done.
In December 2016, Hon Hai took UMC 10.419 billion yen under its control to regain the rights to license Sharp's European brand in the European market, but for the U.S. market it has been unable to talk to Hisense.
Hot
According to the data from Aowei Cloud Network, the total retail sales in China's color television market were 11.79 million units in the first quarter, down 5.2% from the same period of last year; the retail sales in the second quarter were 10.02 million units, down 9.6% from the previous year; the retail sales in the third quarter were 10.41 million units, Decline of 12.9%.
After experiencing the price war of the Internet branded television, the overdrafted mainland China market is facing negative growth in sales data. As the same North American market as the three major television markets, it has become a battleground for the military.
According to a White Paper released by IHS at the 2017 European Cable Television Congress, North America shipped 11.7 million units in 2016 and more than doubled to 25.9 million units in 2020.
Zhu Xun, deputy general manager of Qingdao Hisense International Marketing Co., Ltd., said in an interview that Sharp's total TV sales in the U.S. market increased 47% over 2017 and that of 4K TVs increased 360% in 2017. Some analysts pointed out that Hisense Of the United States sales, 70% for the Sharp brand.
For Hon Hai, Sharp's acquisition not only means to make up the group and other companies to enhance the status of the panel industry, but also means that Hon Hai has a worldwide reputation of the consumer electronics brands.
Hon Hai, which focuses on foundry operations, has been plagued by low profit margins. Taking the third quarter of 2017 as an example, Hon Hai generated revenues of NT $ 1.08 trillion with a net profit of only 21 billion U.S. dollars and a net margin of 1.94%. In the case of Apple, the consumer electronics giant reported revenues of $ 52.579 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017 with a net profit of $ 10.714 billion and a net margin of 20%.
In addition, in addition to the low profit margins, the group's profitability is also limited by the sales volume of foundry products.In order to get out of this situation, Hon Hai has been actively expanding its business scope in the past two years. Among them, the acquisitions of Sharp and Nokia have involved in the production of electronic consumer products Sales is one of the important measures to increase profits.
Can not let the rest of the couch to sleep on the side, Hon Hai want to develop Sharp brand TV, an important Americas market competitors grasp is always a hidden danger.
First, in the next few years, Sharp will not be able to profit in the high-growth Americas market.Secondly, since Hisense does not acquire the permanent right of use of the brand, its development center of gravity will gradually tilt to its own brand, and Hisense will certainly not carefully cultivate Hand over others Finally, in order to suppress competitors, Hisense can not be ruled out the vicious operation of the late Sharp Sharp brand.
However, a series of mutual accusations or with little success between the two sides.China University of Political Science and Law Intellectual Property Law researcher Li Junhui previously said in an interview, the patent infringement case requires an official body to retrieve the data for identification, evidence collection difficulties, litigation time-consuming Longer, and potentially endangering the patent's invalidity.
In fact, a series of lawsuits by both parties want to force opponents to compromise by forcing opponents' brands.Today, the competition among the major corporations is becoming an important weapon in the commercial war because of the patent as a defensive barrier.However, in view of the current development trend of both parties, , This brand battle will continue.