Business Background
Zhuhai Gree Electric Appliances Co., Ltd. (“the Client”), whose brand “Gree” is a world famous brand in China’s air conditioning industry, has a global presence in more than 100 countries and regions. In June 2018, AUX Group filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the Client, claiming that the Client should pay damages and reasonable expenses for the maintenance of rights totalling up to CNY 95 million. Attorney Meihua ZHOU was entrusted by the Client to initiate invalidation proceedings against the patent in this case. With professional services and litigation skills, attorney ZHOU helped the Client win the case and avoid a loss of more than CNY 90 million eventually.
Business Difficulties and Highlights
The Retrieval of Evidence for Invalidation Applications was Difficult.
The patent involved is an authorized invention patent with strong stability. The patented technology involved is a common and necessary control method used in air conditioning systems, making it difficult to succeed with a non-infringement defence strategy. However, the strategy of using prior sale, prior use or use of publicly available technology as a defense will again be challenged by the difficulty of obtaining evidence. In response, attorney ZHOU searched a large number of databases and relevant articles to gather key and effective evidence, which ultimately led to a comprehensive victory and won high praise from the Client.
Successfully settled the dispute in the shortest time
In order to ensure that the patent invalidation decision was obtained before the first instance judgment in the infringement case, attorney ZHOU carefully formulated a litigation plan, limiting the time for evidence collection and application submission in this case to less than two weeks. In order to collect relevant evidence in a more accurate and timely manner, attorney ZHOU had in-depth communication with the technical staff, successfully promoted the patent invalidation application process, and eventually won the infringement case. The final outcome of the case not only strengthened the Client’s market position, but also provided a good reference for the handling of similar cases.
