December 4, 2018 People’s Court Daily Page 3 On November 30, Shanghai Intellectual Property Court made a first-instance judgment for two cases involving design patent infringement filed by VolvoLastvagnarAktiebdag (hereinafter referred to as “Volvo”), ruling that two defendants should stop infringing on Volvo’s design patent immediately and compensate for Volvo’s economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling RMB 780,000 jointly. In September 2012, Volvo applied to the State Intellectual Property Office of the P.R.C (hereinafter referred to as “SIPO”) for two design patents called “Rear Mirror” and “front panel of vehicles” (hereinafter referred to as the “patents involved”) respectively, which were approved. The Plaintiff said that it had sent lawyer’s letters twice to the defendants since they were found to display the infringing products at the exhibitions in 2015 and 2016. Both defendants issued a confirmation letter and promised to stop the infringement, but they failed and continued to display the infringing products on their websites. In July 2016, Volvo’s agent went to their plants to obtain brochures and then purchased the infringing products by means of email negotiations. Believing that two defendants’ act has seriously affected the production and sales of its patented products, causing negative impact on its customers and huge losses to the company, and in view of their common intention liaison and act of repeated and willful infringement, Volvo sued to the court, requesting two defendants to stop infringing its patents involved immediately and compensate for its economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling RMB 1 million jointly. After the trial, Shanghai Intellectual Property Court held that the plaintiff is the patentee of two patents involved, which remain valid up to now. No company or individual is allowed to exploit these patents without the permission of the plaintiff. Through comparison, it’s found that the alleged infringing products in two cases are the same as the plaintiff’s patented products in terms of overall shape, connection between structures and their specific shapes and distribution. Two alleged infringing products fell into the scope of protection of the patents involved respectively. According to the evidences, it can be concluded that two defendants had carried out the act of manufacturing, promising to sell, and selling the alleged infringing products jointly. Hence, Shanghai Intellectual Property Court made the above-mentioned judgment according to law with consideration of the type of the patents involved, its contribution to the realization of product profits, and nature and circumstances of the infringement carried out by two defendants, etc.
