Recently, the reporter learned from Hisense that Hisense, a company listed in the Hisense Group, formally filed a lawsuit in Beijing and Qingdao courts alleging that Sharp, as many as a dozen TV sets sold domestically in China, infringed Hisense's invention patent, which is the second of two companies Competition for brand rights, once again court.
Hisense said the patents involved are mainly a backlight control method, devices and LED TVs and backlight drive circuit and television and other two patents, and are within the validity period, Sharp allegedly infringing products in more than 30 provinces and cities in China have Hisense hopes to order Sharp to immediately stop infringing its patent rights, stop manufacturing, selling, promised sales of infringing products, and destruction of infringing products .Separ responded that 'will respect the law and actively responding.'
This is Sharp and Hisense launched another brand-name battle after the conflict in June this year, Sharp in the United States, California Court sued Hisense, sued Hisense sales of low-quality products damage Sharp's credibility, requiring Hisense to stop using the brand, and at least compensation 100 million US dollars.
In August 2015, Sharp sold Hisense's five-year brand rights to Mexico's Color TV and Sharp TV Americas (excluding Brazil) to Hisense for $ 23.7 million, a year after Hon Hai paid $ 3.81 billion to complete its acquisition of Sharp.
Since then, Hon Hai has been seeking opportunities to rescind Sharp's overseas brand authorization.In the case of unsuccessful negotiations with Hisense, Sharp end of last year decided to stop supplying Hisense LCD panel, in April this year, written notice Hisense to terminate the contract, but Hisense refused Sharp's request to continue to sell Sharp brand.
In fact, after the acquisition by Hon Hai, Sharp plans to reclaim the TV market share.According to Hon Hai Group internal plan, Sharp 2018 (April 2017 -20188 March) will complete the shipment of 10 million LCD TVs Target, nearly 70% increase over this year, if reached this goal, Sharp will rank the world's third-largest LCD TV brand.
If Sharp wins the lawsuit, Sharp can continue to use its own brand in North America; if Hisense won, but also with more than three years to use Sharp's brand to help them ship in North America, Hisense's shipments There will be protection. "Appliance analyst Liang Zhenpeng said the dispute also showed that the North American TV market fierce competition, because this year's shrinking color TV market in China, Hisense, Foxconn, and so want to expand in the growing North American market, the contradiction between the two sides is inevitable.