1. Sanyou won the administrative dispute over the invalidation of an invention patent representing Oerlikon Textile GmbH & Co. KG. 2. Sanyou won the "Annual Excellent Trademark Agency 2021-2022". 3. Sanyou attorney selected as "Gold Medal Attorney for Trademark Service" 4. The 2022 China Patent Survey Report was released 5. Release of 2021 data on the added value of China’s patent-intensive industries
1. Sanyou won the administrative dispute over the invalidation of an invention patent representing Oerlikon Textile GmbH & Co. KG.
Sayou Client: Oerlikon Textile GmbH & Co. KG. Trial organ: Beijing Intellectual Property Court and the Supreme People's Court Trial result: ruling of the trail of first instance is revoked and the claim of the applicant for invalidation is rejected.
Case facts
Oerlikon is the patentee of the invention patent named "False twisting and Deforming Machine" (the patent involved) with patent No. 200810175661.2. In view of the request for invalidation put forward by Yuejian Company, CNIPA made No. 32984 decision on the examination of the request for invalidation on August 1, 2017 (the accused decision), maintaining the validity of the patent right involved. The court of first instance held that the patent involved is a simple combination of the prior art (winding conveyor mechanism and clamping conveyor mechanism), and the beneficial effect brought by the patent involved was the superposition of the technical effect produced by the two conveyor mechanisms respectively. This combination did not require creative labor and was not innovative. Therefore, the court decided to revoke the accused decision and ordered CNIPA to make a new examination decision. Oerlikon refused to accept the ruling and appealed to the Supreme People's Court, claiming that the court of first instance made a mistake in the technical features and innovation judgment of the difference between the patent involved and the comparison document 1 or 2. The court of second instance held that, in determining the distinguishing technical features of the invention that requires protection from the closest prior art, it should proceed from the invention conception of the invention and identify the technical difference between the invention and the closest prior art. If the idea of the invention lied in the combination of the corresponding technical means, and the prior art did not disclose either directly or implicitly the teaching of the combination, nor the technical effect that could be produced by the combination, the combination of the technical means protected by the invention shall be treated as a whole in determining the distinguishing technical features. It was not appropriate to regard a single technical means as the basic object in determining whether it constituted distinguishing technical feature. In this case, the invention concept of the patent involved is: through the combination configuration of different types of conveying mechanisms, that is, the first conveying mechanism and the second conveying mechanism are set as a winding conveying mechanism, and the third conveying mechanism is set as a clamping conveying mechanism, to achieve the technical effect of "guiding the silk thread to the post-processing area without damage, and ensuring that the silk thread tension can remain constant in the post-processing area, and there is no relaxation in the process of winding and changing the cylinder". The prior art disclosed silk conveying device is composed of a single type of conveying mechanism combination, but did not give the teaching of the feeding device composed of different types of conveying mechanism combination configuration, and it also did not disclose the technical effect that could be achieved by different types of conveying mechanism combination configuration. Therefore, when determining the distinguishing features between the involved patent and the closest prior art, the combination configuration of different types of transmission mechanisms of the involved patent should be treated as a whole and taken as the distinguishing technical features from the closest prior art. Moreover, the content recorded in the book Modern Textured Silk Processing submitted by Oerlikon in the trial of second instance also confirmed the close cooperative relationship between the various conveying institutions constituting the material supply device of this patent. When identifying the different technical features of the involved patent and the closest prior art, it is appropriate to take the combination configuration of different types of conveying institutions of the involved patent as a whole. In conclusion, the Supreme People's Court of second instance ruled to cancel the ruling of first instance and rejected the lawsuit claim of the Yuejian Company. Typical significance
In the process of technological research and development, the invention idea is the idea of technological improvement based on which the inventor seeks technical solutions to solve technical problems. When judging the distinguishing technical features of an invention claiming for protection compared with the closest prior art, the technical scheme of the invention, especially the idea of the invention, should be fully understood and compared with the technical means revealed by the prior art, so as to reasonably determine the distinguishing technical features and correctly evaluate the technological contribution made by the inventor. The typical significance of this case lies in that it further clarifies the role of invention conception in identifying distinguishing technical features and thereby improves the accuracy of identifying distinguishing technical features.
2. Sanyou won the "Annual Excellent Trademark Agency 2021-2022"
Recently, China Trademark Association announced the list of "Excellent Trademark Agencies in 2021-2022", and Sanyou Trademark Team was selected for 10 consecutive years for its years of experience and outstanding achievements.
3. Sanyou attorney selected as "Gold Medal Attorney for Trademark Service"
China Trademark Association launched the "Gold Medal Attorney for Trademark Service" selection activity, in which 4 Sanyou’s trademark attorneys Liu Zhichao, Zhou Jiuyang, Hu Xiaoxia and Shirley Fu were included in the list.
The four Sanyou attorneys’ winning of the "Gold Medal Attorney for Trademark Service " signifies a full affirmation of the professional level and service ability of Sanyou’s trademark team. Sanyou will continue to be committed to providing clients with a full range of trademark portfolio design and brand protection strategies, and help create intellectual property values for clients!
4. The 2022 China Patent Survey Report was released
CNIPA released a Survey report on China's Patents in 2022. According to the report, the industrialization rate of valid invention patents in China reached 36.7 percent in 2022, marking a five-year high. The report reveals that the patent assignment and commercialization in China is showing a stable and rising trend, which is mainly reflected in the following five aspects. 1. The industrialization rate of invention patents has increased steadily in the past five years. The industrialization rate of effective invention patents in 2022 was 36.7 percent, marking an increase of 1.3 percent over the previous year. 2. The industrialization rate of invention patents in large and medium-sized enterprises has increased overall. In 2022, the industrialization rate of Chinese enterprises' invention patents was 48.1%, marking an increase of 1.3% over that of the previous year. Among them, the industrialization rates of invention patents in large and medium-sized enterprises were 50.9% and 55.4%, up by 3.8% and 0.8% over that of the previous year, respectively. 3. The level of patent assignment and commercialization in colleges and universities has improved. In 2022, the implementation rate of invention patents in colleges and universities was 16.9%, 3.1% higher than that of the previous year. The industrialization rate reached 3.9%, marking an increase of 0.9% over that of the previous year. Among them, the industrialization rate of invention patents in key universities was 4.4%. The licensing rate of invention patents in colleges and universities was 7.9%, of which 64.3% were general licensing, followed by exclusive licensing, accounting for 33.1%. 4. The assignment rate of invention patents continues to increase. In 2022, the assignment rate of invention patents in China was 11.5%, marking an increase of 4.1 percent over that of the previous year and about 3 times of that of 2018. 5. The open licensing system is valued by the patentees. In 2022, China's invention patent licensing rate was 12.1 percent, marking an increase of 1.7% over that of the previous year and an increase of 7.6% in five years. The survey shows that 48.3% of the patentees are aware of the open licensing system, and 49.6% are willing to adopt the system. In addition, the ability of Chinese patentees to protect their rights has been further improved, and the environment for IPR protection has been continuously optimized, mainly shown as follows. 1. The proportion of Chinese patentees suffering from patent infringement is at a historic low. In 2022, only 7.7% of patents were infringed, below 8% for two consecutive years. 2, the ways for enterprise patentees protecting their rights are becoming more diversified. In 2022, 72.7% of corporate patentees took measures to protect their rights after experiencing patent infringement, and 50.2% took two or more measures to protect their rights, marking an increase of 1.9% over that of the previous year. 3. The proportion of high damages awarded in patent infringement cases has increased on the whole. In 2022, more than 7.0% of patent infringement lawsuits were awarded damages, mediation or out-of-court settlements worth more than RMB 5 million. According to the survey, 45.3% of patentees are aware of the system of punitive damages for patent infringement. 4. Chinese enterprises' overseas intellectual property filings continue to rise. In 2022, 8.3% of the surveyed enterprises expect to continue to increase their overseas patent applications, and the proportion of using overseas patents is 2.1 times of that of having licensed or transferred patents to overseas entities. CNIPA said it will further focus on the quality development of intellectual property, the effectiveness of IP assignment, commercialization and protection, and continue to do a good job in annual patent survey to provide data support for macro-management of intellectual property and scientific decision-making.
5. Release of 2021 data on the added value of China’s patent-intensive industries
In 2021, the added value of China's patent-intensive industries was RMB 14,298.3 billion, marking an increase of 17.9% over that of the previous year (without deducting price factors, the same below). From the perspective of internal structure, the new equipment manufacturing industry took up the largest, with an increase of RMB 3,845.2 billion, accounting for 26.9% of the added value of patent-intensive industries. The second is the information and communication technology service industry, with an added value of RMB 3,063.6 billion. The third is the information and communication technology manufacturing industry, with an added value of RMB 2,854.6 billion. In terms of growth rate, the growth rate of the pharmaceutical and medical industry continued to accelerate, and was up by 40.9%, which was 30.8% higher than that of last year. The number is followed by 18.1% for the information and communication technology manufacturing industry. In addition, the environmental protection industry and the new material manufacturing industry also achieved rapid growth, with the growth rates being 17.5 percent and 17.1 percent respectively.
