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Download File: https://beta2.law.asia/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Chang-Tsi-Nancy-Qu.mp4?_=1Chinese consumers are paying more and more attention to the unique design of products. Under such circumstances, design patent rights become increasingly important in market competition, and thus a target that infringers tend to attack. A strategy the infringers usually use during infringement lawsuits is to file a request for invalidation against the patent right.
Once the design patent is invalidated, the commercial loss for the patentee is inestimable. So the patentee has to maintain its patent right via an administrative lawsuit, and it can be difficult for the patentee to win. The following is such a case the authors dealt with recently.
NANCY QU
铸成律师事务所资深专利律师
Senior Patent Attorney
Chang Tsi & Partners
In 2012, Kohler Co. found that Xima Co. exhibited, produced and sold a toilet that infringed Kohler’s design patent on a large scale. Without any positive response, after communication and repeated warnings, Kohler filed an infringement lawsuit. Xima filed requests for invalidation against Kohler’s design patents three times, even after the first instance and second instance courts decided that Xima must stop infringing and compensate for damages. Unfortunately, Kohler’s design was invalidated in the third invalidation procedure. The patent product, NUMI toilet, which is a star product of Kohler, had won international design awards, and so this unfavourable decision produced a serious negative influence on Kohler’s rights protection and marketing. In order to protect the patentee’s legitimate rights and interests, the authors, on behalf of Kohler, filed an administrative lawsuit against the decision.
In the above case, the prior design that the Patent Re-examination Board (PRB) used to invalidate the implicated design came from a small picture taken from an obscure magazine years ago, and the outline and design details could not be determined from the copy that Xima provided.
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Nancy Qu is a senior patent attorney at Chang Tsi & Partners. She can be contacted on +86 10 8836 9999 or by email at nancyqu@changtsi.com
Vickie Wang is a patent attorney at Chang Tsi & Partners. She can be contacted on +86 10 8836 9999 or by email at patent@changtsi.com
