Philips Wins Patent Dispute

Royal Philips Electronics (Philips) recently won RMB 200,000 compensation in a patent infringement case in the Shanghai Second Intermediate People’s Court. Philips sued Wenzhou Ridian Electrical Appliance Co. Ltd. (Wenzhou Ridian) and a shop owner over infringing razors after discovering that they were being sold in a Shanghai store.

In its defense, Wenzhou Ridian tried to argue that it did not produce or sell the shavers, and that the technology had been publicly disclosed. The court, after assessing information on Wenzhou Ridian’s website and the shavers’ packaging, did not accept their argument that they had not produced the shavers. The store owner claimed that it had bought the shavers at a market and knew nothing of any infringement.

The Intellectual Property Affairs Center of the Ministry of Science and Technology had earlier identified that the defendant’s shavers’ technical features were identical to those of Philips’ invention patent. After comparing the shavers with Philips’ patented products, the court decided that the shavers’ technical features did indeed fall into the protection scope of the patent.