China’s Supreme People’s Court on November 3 ruled in favor of Swiss medical device maker Synthes GmbH in a patent lawsuit against Chinese rival Double Medical Technology for infringing Synthes’s patent CN03827088.9 entitled “device for treating femoral fractures”.

Synthes GmbH accused Double Medical Technology and two of its distributors of manufacturing, marketing, and selling five classes of products infringing this patent and sought 20 million yuan ($3 million) in damages. The trial court ordered the defendants to cease infringement and Double Medical Technology to pay 1 million yuan ($156,000) to the plaintiff. The parties appealed the decision to the Supreme People Court.

In the complaint filed by Synthes, three calculation methods were deployed for determining the amount of the damages it claimed. The operating profit margin disclosed in Double’s initial public offering prospectus and the sales figures of the allegedly infringing products available on the distributors’ online shop were also provided by Synthes to fulfil its burden of proof.

In the retrial, Double Medical Technology dismissed the claimed damages and refused to provide sales data on the infringing products. The top court agreed with Synthes’s arguments and awarded the full 20 million yuan ($3 million) damages it required.