Written by Xijie CHENG

 

The Intellectual Property Division of Supreme People's Court has selected a patent enforcement lawsuit represented by Foundin as Typical Case of the week.

 

**Key Point** The SPC ruled that the although the plaintiff did not actually purchase the accused infringing product, the manufacturing of the product can be reasonably inferred based on the behavior of the defendant, such as the disclosure of detailed product model, origin, quantity, and descriptions such as "factory direct sale" displayed on the e-commerce platforms.

 

**Case Summary**

An Italian machinery company holds the patent number 02829511.0 for an invention entitled "A BUCKET FOR CRUSHING AND SCREENING STONE". The Italian company discovered that an engineering machinery company from Shandong had posted product photos on several e-commerce platforms such as "AiCaiGou," "SouLeWang," and "CaiLiaoWang," which were identical to their patented products. These posts included details such as quantity, price, and also displayed the Shandong Company’s trademark, and displayed that the product origin is Shandong, along with the product's working mechanism.

 

Upon a detailed comparison and analysis, Foundin believed that the working mechanism of the products offered for sale on these e-commerce platforms falls within the scope of claim 1 of Italian company’s patent. Some photos that were displayed on these platforms even used the Italian company's trademark. Consequently, the Italian company sued the Shandong Company, requesting them to cease manufacturing, sales, and offer-for-sale of the infringing products and compensate for an economic loss and reasonable expenses.

 

The Shandong Company admitted that the photos displayed on the e-commerce platforms were from the patented products, but they argued that the photos were just sourced and downloaded from the internet, and they had no intention of patent infringement or trademark infringement. They also argued that the logo, origin, and quantity of sales on the e-commerce platforms were all fabricated just for sales purposes and these data were not true. Further, the Shandong Company asserted that they did not actually manufacture or sell the displayed products. Surprisingly, the court of first instance at Jinan of Shandong supported these argumentations because the Italian company did not have actual evidence to prove that the Shandong Company did manufacture or sell the product.

 

In the second instance, the Supreme People's Court ruled that although the plaintiff did not actually purchase the accused infringing product, the manufacturing of the product can be reasonably inferred based on the bad-faith behavior of the defendant, such as the disclosure of detailed product model, origin, quantity of sales, and descriptions such as “factory direct sale”, “call for price” and so on, displayed on these e-commerce platforms.

 

**Conclusion**

The SPC’s judges emphasized that it will not be necessary for the plaintiff to actually buy the product from the infringer for patent enforcement and trademark enforcement. If the Court can reasonably infer that the accused infringing products were manufactured or sold by the defendant based on other information, such as the disclosure of detailed product model, origin, quantity of sales, and descriptions such as "factory direct sale" displayed on e-commerce platforms, such will be sufficient to establish the infringement.