China’s Ningbo Intermediate People’s Court ruled in favor of Ningbo Ronbay New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. in its lawsuit against Brussels-based Umicore N.V. on September 30. Plaintiff Umicore filed the suit against Ronbay alleging its lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) cell S6503 infringed Umicore’s patent ZL201280008003.9, seeking 62 million yuan ($9.6 million) in damages on September 24.

However, this is far from the end of the litigation between the two parties. On September 17, Umicore and its Korean subsidiary brought another legal action against Ronbay’s subsidiary based in China’s Hubei province, alleging its NMC cell S85E infringed Unicore’s patent ZL201580030857.0, seeking 252 million yuan ($39 million) in damages. The amount accounts for 7.02% of Ronbay’s revenue for the first half of 2021 and 78.5% of the profit attributable to shareholders.