Li Ruina
As the air-conditioning industry becomes increasingly oligopolistic today, the patent warfare has become a short-cut for each company to maintain its own intellectual property rights and expand its brand influence. In the industry, the most striking is the recent Ningbo Oaks Air Conditioning Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'Oaks'). ) Patent game with Zhuhai Gree Electric Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'Gree'). According to a recent order of the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court, Aux lost his case and required compensation for Gree’s 46 million yuan.
For this result, Oaks related person in charge told the “China Business” reporter that for the above-mentioned order to be respected but did not agree, Oakes also filed a grievance against Gree’s infringement. The court is still in the process of hearing and any results will be promptly notified.
The fierce patent battle stems from increased competition in the air-conditioning market. Today, Oaks, who is in the second tier, is seeking market share expansion and is heading for the first camp. Industry analysts say that Oaks is marketing in the air-conditioning sector, and it is adding online channels. , The expansion of production capacity and other actions are frequent, but need to pay attention to the entire air-conditioning market demand may be reduced in 2018.
Patent War Smoke Diffuse
It is understood that Oaks and Gree have long complained that Gree v. Oaks infringed on patent rights in a total of six cases. It is worth mentioning that in June 2017, Gree believes that the new Athena series of air conditioners in 2017 will infringe Gree's name ' The patents for the water tanks on the upper and lower sides, the bottom shell integration, lodged a lawsuit against Oaks to the Higher People’s Court of Guangdong Province, and claimed 110 million yuan, setting the highest domestic patent price for domestic appliance industry. Later, Oaks also targeted Gree. A number of technical infringements, such as the installation of air-conditioners for motor installations, panels, and air-guiding doors, lodged a lawsuit in the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court and demanded that Gree compensate more than 50 million yuan.
The past patent infringement case has finally ushered in the tone. Recently, in the case of Gree v. Oaks air-conditioning patent infringement series, the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court made a first-instance judgment on three of the cases. The court order stated: Oaks Stop selling the products that were convicted of infringement and destroy the inventory; Oaks compensated Gree for economic losses and reasonable expenditures for rights protection. The three cases amounted to 46 million yuan. This amount of judgment immediately refreshed the new record of patent infringement compensation in the household appliance industry.
For this result, Oaks does not seem to accept. 'We respected but did not agree with the court of first instance. So Oaks has filed an appeal in court against Gree's lawsuit. In the absence of a final judgment from the court, we no longer respond. Related content. ' Oakes related responsible person also told this reporter that Oakes also filed a complaint against Gree's infringement, the court is in the trial, if any results will be promptly informed.
Household appliance industry analyst Zhang Jianfeng pointed out that in fact, Oakes' attitude to the above trial results can be studied from two aspects. First, Oakes's disapproval is that the outcome of the case itself is not accepted, or the penalty amount is not accepted for further observation; From the point of view of the entire industry development, the trial of this patent case is a good reference for the overall rise of China's household electrical appliance industry and 'Made in China 2025'. Only when the enterprise is loyal to independent research and development can it be better developed.
However, the patent warfare was a success or failure. Last year, Oaks also made a beautiful encounter by protecting intellectual property. In October 2017, the company name encompassing the Oaks and Oaks logos and the Oaks Group and the 'AUX' logo were included. The three-year dispute over intellectual property rights and unfair competition between Oaks Express Elevator (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. was finally known. The latter was judged to stop using the words 'Aux' and 'AUX' and the domain name 'www.auxlift.com'. , And compensate the Oakes Group economic losses and reasonable costs totaling 1 million yuan.
Offering a combination boxing to break through the second camp
Founded in 1994, Oaks Air Conditioning Co., Ltd. is part of the Oaks Group. In addition to the air-conditioning industry, the Oaks Group has now extended its reach into areas such as electricity, home appliances, medical care, real estate, and finance. By 2020, it will try to achieve a market value of RMB 100 billion. The scale of billions of profit, billions of profits', relied on three strategies of 'medical health, internet intelligence, and internationalization'. However, in the expansion of the Oaks Group, the home appliances industry represented by air conditioning is still the most popular and well-known group. The part of the representative.
Oaks's high hopes for the air-conditioning industry can be seen from his goals. It is reported that at the 2018 Oaks E-Commerce Summit held in March, Oaks set a sales target of 25 billion yuan this year.
In order to achieve this goal, Oaks tried to make efforts in channel marketing. At the beginning of 2018, Oaks air-conditioner and JD.com set a target of annual revenue exceeding RMB 15 billion. This means that JD.com channels will account for 6 of its online share. In addition, starting from March 28th, the Oaks Air Conditioning 1000 Network Approval Conference in Jiangsu, Jingjin Wing, Henan, Anhui and other places were successively opened. After entering May, Shandong and other provinces and cities will also be fully launched.
In line with the expansion of sales volume, Oaks has increased its production capacity. In December 2017, Oaks invested 2.39 billion yuan to build a new air-conditioning smart factory which was officially put into production 15 months later. Zheng Jianjiang, chairman of the Oaks Group, said: “Aux's new smart factory has been put into production. It can realize an annual increase of 7 million sets of annual production capacity, and the total production capacity will exceed 22 million sets in 2018, shortening the overall delivery time by 30%.'
On May 11th, Oaks produced an annual output of 9.5 million sets of smart home appliance industry park projects in Maanshan City, and said it was expected to be officially put into production in March 2019. He Xiwan, vice chairman of the Oaks Group, said that Oaks has more than 30 ventures. Over the years, Oaks has been attaching importance to the development of advanced manufacturing, especially to the electricity and air-conditioning industries. It is expected that after the construction of the industrial park started today, air-conditioning sales will reach 26 million units next year.
However, market demand can not digest so much air conditioning capacity is still unknown. Zhang Jianfeng said that Oaks is clearly in the second tier position, and now Oaks continues to add online sales, and intentionally or unintentionally compressed offline channels, this does not seem to Calculating, and the capacity expansion may be difficult to fully digest the risk.
According to the statistics of Orville Cloud Network on the offline home air-conditioner retail market in 2017, Gree and Midea occupy nearly 60% of the market share. Haier, Hisense and Oaks are ranked 345, respectively, but market share Both are less than 10%. Among them, the market share of Oaks is 4.32%.
In addition, Ove Cloud Network data show that the air-conditioning industry is expected to retail 53.13 million units in 2018, a year-on-year decrease of 5.4%, retail sales of 186 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3.7%. In response, industry sources pointed out that the entire air-conditioning industry is There will be no small challenge in 2018, and the estimated production capacity of Oakes' 20 million sets in 2018 may also be a challenge.