April 14, 2018 Jiemian
On April 13, Shanghai Intellectual Property Court held a case study workshop on the theme of “safeguarding technological innovation and promoting the optimization of business environment,” at which 20 typical cases of optimizing the business environment were published, including Dianping v. Baidu unfair competition case.
On April 13, Shanghai Intellectual Property Court held a case study workshop on the theme of “safeguarding technological innovation and promoting the optimization of business environment”, at which the Typical Cases of Shanghai Intellectual Property Court on Providing Judicial Guarantees for the Building of Business Environment were published, including Dianping v. Baidu unfair competition case.
At the workshop, Judge Chen Huizhen, National Adjudication Expert, explained a few typical cases and mainly introduced the case of appeal for the dispute over unfair competition (Beijing Baidu Netcom Science and Technology Co., Ltd v. Shanghai Hantao Information Consulting Co., Ltd).
In April 2016, Shanghai Hantao Information Consulting Co., Ltd, the operator of Dianping website (http://www.dianping.com), brought Beijing Baidu Netcom Science and Technology Co., Ltd and Shanghai Jietu Software Co., Ltd to court for the reason that their act of using lots of Dianping comments in their products, Baidu Map and Baidu Zhidao, constituted unfair competition. It’s requested that two defendants should stop the unfair competition, jointly compensate for Hantao’s economic losses amounting to 9,000,000 yuan and the expenses incurred to stop the infringement totaling more than 450,000 yuan, meanwhile publish a statement to clarify the facts and eliminate the adverse effects.
On May 26, 2017, Pudong New Area People’s Court of Shanghai made the first-instance judgment that Baidu should stop the infringement and compensate for Hantao’s economic losses amounting to RMB 3,000,000. Baidu appealed against the judgment. Shanghai Intellectual Property Court, court of second instance, held that although Baidu’s act enriched consumers’ choices to some extent, its frequent use of full texts has gone beyond what is necessary, which not only seriously damaged the interests of Hantao, but also undermined the market order of fair competition.
On August 30, 2017, Shanghai Intellectual Property Court dismissed the appeal and affirmed the original judgment. The court of second instance held that Baidu’s act harmed the interests of Hantao and violated the accepted business ethics, which constituted unfair competition. Hence, Baidu’s appeal was rejected.
Judge Chen Huizhen stressed that judgment of the present case suggested unauthorized use of other’s information couldn’t be necessarily deemed to constitute unfair competition, but rather take into account all the factors involved. She said that the adjudication rules in this case not only encourage market players to operate honestly, give due judicial incentives to enterprises for their efforts in information collection, mining and collation, but also reasonably determine the boundaries of using others’ information.
Besides, Judge Chen Huizhen said, “when handling intellectual property disputes, the people’s courts should protect the legitimate rights and interests of new and innovative enterprises while protecting the patent rights according to law. They should protect innovation and development and optimize the business environment with fair justice.” For example, the case of dispute over invention patent infringement - Hu v. Mobike (Beijing) Information Technology Co., Ltd.
Hu obtained a patent for “an electric vehicle control system and its operation method” in May 2016. Believing that the technical features of lock control system of mobikes leased out by Mobike Company were the same as those of his patent and had infringed upon his patent right, Hu sued to court requesting Mobike Company to stop the infringement and make compensation.
Shanghai Intellectual Property Court, court of first instance, held that the alleged infringing lock control system and its operating methods of mobikes didn’t fell within the scope of protection of the patent involved. Hence, Hu’s all claims were rejected.
The reporter learned that Shanghai Intellectual Property Court is trying to establish a case database through the collection, collation, sorting, study and release of typical cases, so as to give full play to judicial adjudication’s role in guiding values, and, by means of official website, Weibo, WeChat, editing books and other all-media forms, to give full play to the role of typical cases in guiding, regulation, prevention and education.
