April
18 -- Jiangmen Intermediate People's Court last month ordered Taizhou Emas Co
Ltd in Zhejiang province to immediately cease manufacturing a power brushcutter
it found violated the design patent of an Italian company and its China
division.
Jiangmen
Emak Outdoor Power Equipment Co Ltd and its parent company Emak S.P.A will
together receive 60,000 yuan ($9,516) in compensation from Taizhou Emas as part
of the judgment.
Jiangmen
Emak makes outdoor power equipment such as lawnmowers, chainsaws and
brushcutters.
In
April 2010, the company's Chinese division discovered a brushcutter on the
market made by Taizhou Emas that "shared a quite similar integral visual
effect, structure and combination of colors" with its patented product
Sparta 44, according to court documents.
On
May 31 of the same year, it found that a machinery store in Jiangmen city had
two of the copycat brushcutters on sale.
Jiangmen
Emak told the court that Taizhou Emas' manufacturing and the store's retailing
of the cutters without licensing or authorization "seriously
infringed" on its patent rights.
The
Italian company was granted an appearance design patent for the cutter by
China's State Intellectual Property Office in 2008. It then licensed the patent
to its Chinese subsidiary in Jiangmen.
The
two plaintiffs filed a suit in December, 2010, providing the court with
documents showing Jiangmen Emak was authorized to use the design patent in
China exclusively.
Zheng
Caiwei, an attorney for Taizhou Emas, argued that "the accused
infringement took place before the effect date of the license contract",
but the court rejected the claim.
One
of the defendants offered a statement to the court confessing that the
brushcutters bought from Taizhou Emas were patent-infringing products, and also
promised to hand over the machines to Jiangmen Emak and never again purchase
the product.
After
the suit, SIPO rejected Taizhou Emas' challenge to the validity of the patent
and sided with Jiangmen Emak in late March.
Raphael
McCarthy, general manager of Jiangmen Emak, said his company's victory in the
case made him "more confident that Chinese law system respects and
protects intellectual property rights".
"A
company's patents and its market competence are proportional," he said.
"A company that pays more attention to patents usually has stronger
competitiveness. A market-leading company should be one that invests much in
intellectual property development."
He
also emphasized that Emak would continue pursuing other copycat products to
protect its intellectual property.
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