Shanghai Intellectual Property Court Invited Technical Investigator and Experts in Court Trial for the First Time (Sep-2016)
According to the introduction of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court, said court assigned for the first time technical investigators and experts to participate the trial in one of its recently concluded invention patent infringement disputes, which effectively solved the problem of being difficult to find out technical facts due to technicality and professionalism in the patent cases.
The plaintiff, Shanghai Sinofaith IP Group Co., Ltd., alleged that it obtained exclusive rights for the patent invention “content-oriented load balancing method” authorized by the patentee, HUAWEI Technologies Co., Ltd. in August, 2014. The load balancing method adopted by the interactive media CDN platform software, SHTECH content scheduling management software sold or promised to sell by the defendant, Shanghai SHTECH Technology Co., Ltd., are similar to the accused patent, the defendant’s behavior infringed the patent rights involved, thus, the plaintiff requested the court to decree the defendant to stop infringement and compensate an economic loss of RMB ten million yuan.
This case is of strong professionalism due to its involvement in the field of communication, and further, the alleged patent is a method invention. Furthermore, it is difficult to determine the method infringed since both parties are controversial to the interpretation of the alleged patent right and the determination of the method infringed. The Shanghai Intellectual Property Court invited technical investigators and experts to participate in the litigation of the present case, and the technical investigators focused on the pretrial preparation to determine the uncontroversial technical facts to both parties through technical hearings, as well as the controversial points relating to the technical facts to assist the judges to determine the priorities and ideas for examination. The experts focused on the overall control of the case during the trial and made independent judgment concerning the problems concerning the technical facts through studying the files and raising additional questions regarding the technical facts during the trial.
During the trial, there were divisions of work between the technical investigators and experts to give full play to their professional advantages so that they can provide objective and professional comments on the technical problems relating to the alleged patent and the technical solution infringed, which played a positive role for comprehensively and accurately finding out the facts of the present case. The facts of the case were ascertained after technical hearings, three exchanges of evidences and court trial. Both parties eventually withdrew the lawsuit and settled out of court. In the meantime, this case was also contributive to the smooth settlement of the other three related cases. The trial method of the present case is of exemplary role to following similar cases.
It is reported that Shanghai Intellectual Property Court appointed 11 technical investigators in March, 2016, wherein 9 are adjunct technical investigators, and 2 are permanent technical investigators.
(Source: Shanghai court network)