The judicial remedy value is an important reflection of the market value of patent rights and an important embodiment of the judicial protection of intellectual property rights. In order to investigate the relevant situation of judicial relief for patent infringement, Beijing Intellectual Property Court set up a research group to conduct particular research on patent infringement cases heard by the Court from November 2014 to March 2020.
By the end of March 2020, the Court had accepted 2,811 patent infringement cases, 1,923 of which had been concluded, accounting for over 68%, 65.5% of which had been transferred, and concluded 480 cases by judgment, accounting for 17%. The specific situation and characteristics are as follows:
1. The number of closed cases is increasing year by year, and the number of new types of cases is increasing year by year. The annual average growth rate of the number of cases closed in the past five years was as high as 15 percent and 24.7 percent. Last year, the number of cases closed achieved a high growth rate of 36.3 percent year-on-year. Cases involving foreign nationals or those involving Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan accounted for nearly 14 percent, and the number of cases brought by the parties both at home and abroad increased. New types of cases involving national strategic emerging industries, such as 4G communication technology, unmanned aerial vehicles and oncology pharmacy, are increasing year by year.
2. The patent involved is of high stability, and the situation of patentee wins the cases occupy a high proportion. In the cases decided, more than 60 percent of the patents involved experienced invalid procedures, and the proportion of maintaining the patent validity or partially valid was as high as 62 percent. The plaintiffs won 355 cases, with a winning rate of 74%, including 69% of foreign-related cases. In the successful cases, the amount of claim was supported occupies an average of more than 40%, and in 55 cases, accounting for 15.5%, the winning party was awarded an average amount of nearly 460,000 yuan per case, among which the invention patentee was awarded an average of more than 880,000 yuan.
3. The calculation of damage compensation is relatively general, and the applicable proportion of legal compensation is relatively high. More than 70% of the judgments refer to the process of determining the amount of compensation and the name of the item determining the factors of damages. Some related cases have the problem of inconsistent argument. Only four cases were applicable to actual losses, ten cases were applicable to tort profits, and three cases were applicable to license fee multiple calculations of compensation. Two cases were applicable to punitive damages, and the rest were applicable to legal damages and discretionary compensation, accounting for more than 91.8% of the successful cases. The calculation method claimed by the patentee is not clear, and there are many problems of insufficient proof.
4. Most technical fields are closely related to daily life, and few cases of advanced technology are concluded. Among the cases that have been decided and settled, the cases involving the consumer goods industry account for the most, accounting for more than 60%, among which the furniture, beauty, food, beauty and health care, toys and other industries account for a relatively high proportion. The disputes related to juicer patents, selfie stick patents, evaporator patents and other patents show an increased incidence.
Fewer cases involving computers, communications technology, medicine and medical care were concluded by judgment, accounting for less than 10 percent.