Not long ago, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court concluded the case in which the plaintiff Samsung and the defendant's State Intellectual Property Office Patent Reexamination Board (hereinafter referred to as the Patent Reexamination Board) patented the patent for invalidation and requested an administrative dispute to maintain the validity of the invention patent held by Huawei. Previously, Samsung filed a request for invalidation of a patent right against a Patent Reexamination Board against a patent in question. The Patent Reexamination Board found that the invalidity of the requestor was not established and the patent right was valid.
In the eyes of people in the industry, in recent years, Huawei has been negotiating patent cross-licensing with Samsung, but the result is not satisfactory. Huawei has won successive series of patent disputes, and it has added important importance to its cross-license negotiations with Samsung. Chips. In the future, Samsung may need to rethink its business strategy and patent layout strategy in the Chinese market.
One patent triggers multiple disputes
In 2010, Huawei submitted a patent application and obtained an authorization. On June 27, 2016, Huawei infringed five defendants including Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. to the Intermediate People’s Court of Quanzhou, Fujian Province on the ground of patent infringement. Quanzhou Intermediate Court) asked the court to order the five defendants to stop the infringement, and to compensate the economic loss of 80 million yuan and a reasonable cost of 500,000 yuan.
After hearing the case, Quanzhou Intermediate People's Court held that the infringement of the respondent was established. In addition, the Quanzhou Intermediate People’s Court ruled that Samsung’s compensation for Huawei’s economic losses and reasonable expenses was 80.5 million yuan. After the judgment of the first instance, both Huawei and Samsung were senior citizens of Fujian Province. The court (hereinafter referred to as the Fujian Higher Institute) filed an appeal. After the Fujian Higher Court was tried, except for some adjustments to the part of stopping the infringement, all other cases maintained the judgment of first instance.
After Huawei filed a patent infringement lawsuit, Samsung filed a request for invalidation against the Patent Reexamination Board against the patent involved. The Patent Reexamination Board rejected the request. Samsung refused to accept the suit and filed a lawsuit with the Beijing Intellectual Property Court. After trial at the Beijing Intellectual Property Court According to the opinion, the judgment rejected the plaintiff’s lawsuit request. Both Samsung and Huawei were dissatisfied and appealed to the Beijing Higher People’s Court. At present, the case is under further investigation.
Prudent trial to maintain the validity of patents
In the above-mentioned disputes between Huawei and Samsung, it is very important that the Patent Reexamination Board maintains the patent rights involved in the case. Then the Patent Re-examination Board decides on what basis to make the review of the case.
According to the case discussion group, the understanding of the technical features defined in the claims should be based on the contents stated in the description, and the overall meaning of the technical features should be clearly defined and compared with the closest prior art. It is worth mentioning that the time for publicizing the audiovisual data evidence can be based on the notarization time of the data, the time recorded in the audiovisual data and the time of publication of the large-scale website. Make inferences.
After the Patent Reexamination Board made the decision on the sued review, it attracted wide attention from the industry. Analysis by industry insiders, the suing review decision explained that in determining the scope of protection of the claims, the substance of the invention should be fully grasped and the technical features of the claims should be invented. The substantive understanding provides an objective basis for novelty and creative evaluation.
Litigation aims to cooperate
The reporter learned from the interview that in recent years, Huawei Company has initiated multiple patent infringement lawsuits against Samsung and involved multiple patents. At the same time, Samsung also counterattacked and filed a request for invalidation of patent rights for several patents involved. .
As for the frequent patent litigations of the two communications giants, some experts analyzed that for a long period of time, Huawei and Samsung did not enter into a patent cross-licensing cooperation. One of the important reasons is that Samsung Company charged Huawei with excessive fees and was unreasonable. Patent Licensing Fees. The reason why Huawei launched a series of lawsuits is that it hopes to demonstrate its technical strength through lawsuits and expand its brand influence. It is also trying to explore the new patent operation ecosystem through patent litigation. Huawei’s continued success in a series of disputes helps It continued negotiations with Samsung to force Samsung to make concessions. If Samsung does not concede, both parties may continue to fight in patent litigation.
From this expert's point of view, the series of lawsuits of Huawei and Samsung also played a warning role for domestic mobile terminal manufacturers. In the future, China's mobile terminal manufacturers should not only pay attention to patent layout, but also should actively participate in mobile communication and smart phone technology standards. Formulated to continuously enhance market competitiveness.