On November 19, the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court made a public judgment on a dispute over infringement of computer software copyright. When determining the amount of infringement compensation, the serious circumstances of the infringer’s resistance to court evidence preservation were fully considered, and the judgment was changed to fully support the copyright owner’s damage compensation and reasonable expenses request totaling more than 2.7 million yuan.
In the dispute over the infringement of computer software copyright between the appellant Siemens Industrial Software Co., Ltd. and the appellant Guangzhou Wofu Mould Co., Ltd., Siemens Software was the copyright owner of the NX series of software, and on the ground of the software involved in the case to design products and the manufacturing constitutes infringement, a lawsuit was filed in the court of first instance.
According to Siemens Software's application, the court of first instance sent the preservation ruling to Wofu, and explained in detail the preservation measures to be taken and the legal consequences of refusing to cooperate with the court preservation. According to the on-site inventory, there are 26 computers in the design office of Wofu Corporation. After the court of first instance secured seventeen computers and nine of them showed that the software involved in the case was installed, Wofu suddenly took countermeasures to obstruct the preservation by refusing to turn on some computers, cutting off power, detaining court cameras, and preventing court personnel from leaving. The work resulted in the court’s forced termination of preservation work, and the remaining nine computers were not preserved.
The court of first instance determined that Wofu Company constituted an infringement and ordered Wofu Company to stop the infringement and compensate Siemens Software Company for economic losses of 500,000 yuan and a reasonable cost of 100,000 yuan for rights protection based on the statutory compensation limit.
Both Siemens Software Corporation and Wofu Corporation were dissatisfied and appealed to the Supreme People's Court. Siemens Software Company appealed that the amount of damages determined by the court of first instance was too low, and the amount of compensation should be determined based on the actual losses of the company and the fact that Wofu Company resisted court evidence preservation. Wofu believes that the source code was not compared in this case, the facts of infringement were not clear, and the amount of compensation determined by the court of first instance was too high.
The Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court held that in the second instance of the Supreme People's Court that the court of first instance had stated that resisting preservation would bear adverse consequences, Wofu still took countermeasures to obstruct the court’s preservation work. In the case where it has been confirmed that some of the preserved computers have installed the software involved, according to the relevant judicial interpretation, it can be presumed that the unsuccessfully preserved computers have installed the software involved, and Wofu will resist this fact when determining the infringement damages. The behavior of court evidence preservation shall also be considered. In the end, based on the facts of the case, such as the number of infringing software and the selling price of genuine software, Siemens Software’s request for damages was fully supported, and Wofu was sentenced to compensate Siemens Software for economic losses of RMB 2,612,827 and reasonable expenses of RMB 100,000.
The judgment of this case specifically pointed out that any unit or individual obstructing judicial staff from performing their duties by violence, threats or other methods not only seriously violated the basic principles of litigation integrity but also seriously obstructed civil litigation. The people's court will fully consider the circumstances when determining the specific amount of compensation.
In judicial practice, the reasonable and effective use of the preservation system by the people’s courts not only helps to solve the problem of difficulty for the right holders to provide evidence in intellectual property litigation, and realizes timely and effective protection, but also helps the court to ascertain the facts of the case and distinguish in a timely manner of right and wrong. Therefore, any organization or individual should actively assist and cooperate with the court’s evidence preservation work; otherwise, it will bear corresponding adverse consequences and legal liabilities.
The adoption of the case-based interpretation has an important guiding role in guiding the parties’ litigation integrity and strengthening the construction of the social integrity system.
