The principle of prior art defense established in patent infringement litigation means that the scope of protection of a patent right shall not encompass the prior art. The rationale of the principle is that the public have the right to freely practice the prior art known to the public, and no one is entitled to claim the prior art into the scope of an exclusive patent right, or else the public interest will be damaged. In addition to examining the legal validity of the patent right in the patent invalidation procedure, examining an accused infringer’s assertion of the prior art defense in the patent infringement litigation is advantageous for timely resolving disputes, reducing litigation exhaustion of the parties, and realizing unification of equity and efficiency. The prior art defense and its difference from determination of novelty judgment or inventiveness in the patent invalidation procedure are articulated in this case, which facilitate the parties’ understanding the standards of application of the prior art defense by the courts in China.

As prescribed in the Chinese Trademark Law, application for registration of a trademark shall not create any prejudice to another person’s prior right, which includes prior copyright. Prior copyright is considered as an important aspect in trademark disputes with various advantages to claim against the disputed trademark, such as automatic protection without registration, cross-jurisdiction protection and cross-Class protection.

A technical solution refers to a collection of technical means that are adopted to solve a technical problem and utilize the laws of nature. Generally, a technical means is embodied by one or more technical features. When an invention-creation, especially inventiveness of a claim, is evaluated, usually a standard three-step method is adopted. However, there is a deviation that an invention-creation is NOT evaluated as an organic whole and a claim is divided as several fragmented parts and the respective parts are evaluated separately. However, such kind of evaluation is inappropriate. In this case, the Supreme People’s Court emphasized that an invention-creation should be evaluated as a whole.

The usage environment feature refers to a technical feature for describing the environment or conditions under which an invention is applied. The usage environment feature included in a claim is a part of the essential technical features of the claim, contributes to define the protection scope of the claim, and thus shall be considered when determining the protection scope of the claim.

On October 15, 2014, Rule 14 of the Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) on Several Issues concerning the Trial of Administrative Cases Involving the Granting and Determination of Trademark Right (Draft for Comment) was released by the SPC with two different opinions regarding the weight of evidence of trademark registration certificate and trademark gazette in determining copyright ownership. The first opinion provides that, “trademark gazette, trademark registration certificate, etc. may serve as prima facie evidence to ascertain the copyright owner or the interested party thereof. Where the applicant of the disputed trademark opposes, that applicant has the burden to provide counter evidence to support his opposition.”

According to Article 61, Paragraph 1 of the Chinese Patent Law (2009), a patentee may choose to shift its burden of proof for infringing process to the defendant when the patented process is for obtaining new product. However, to take use of such convenience, the patentee has to satisfy some preconditions. This case illustrates that the patentee have to submit preliminary evidence regarding “new product.” Based on this case, this article will discuss all the preconditions for application of Article 61, Paragraph 1 with an overview.

The patentee Manfred A. A. Lupke (hereinafter referred to as “Lupke”) owning an invention patent No. ZL95192937.2 brought a lawsuit before the Tianjin Intermediate People’s Court against Weifang Zhongyun Machine Co.,Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Zhongyun Machine”) as the producer of a corrugated pipe manufacturing equipment, and Tianjin Shengxiang Plastic Pipe Industry Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Shengxiang Industry”) as the user of the equipments, alleging that the corrugated pipe manufacturing equipment produced by Zhongyun Machine has infringed the patent.

The latter half of Article 32 of the Chinese Trademark Law 2013 (Article 31 of the Chinese Trademark Law 2001) stipulates that“ preemptive registration by unfair means of a trademark with certain fame already used by another party” shall not be approved (“Bad Faith Filing Provision”). From the literal understanding of such provision, the fame of the trademark with prior use and the bad faith of the applicant of the disputed trademark are two requirements for application of law for the Bad Faith Filing Provision.

A method patent is different from a product patent in that it protects a dynamic operation process. How to compare between the method used by the defendant and the patented process is a key point when the court tries an infringement case involving a process patent. In this case, by finding the technical feature difference of the products, the court held that the two processes are neither identical nor equivalent and thus the defendant does not infringe upon the plaintiff’s patent. This shows a new way for judging infringement upon a process patent.

The Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Patent Infringement Dispute Cases stipulates, in Rule 6, “where the applicant or patent right owner abandons a technical solution through amendments to the claims and/or specification or observations during the prosecution of the application or the invalidation proceedings of the patent, the court shall not support the right owner’s claim of reclaiming the abandoned technical solution back into the protection scope in the infringement litigation case.” Therefore, application of the DOE is premised with a condition that the right owner has abandoned the technical solution through amendments or observations during the patent prosecution or invalidation proceedings.