Valve industry patent rights and rights

Under the support and advocacy of relevant national policies, enterprises have deepened their understanding of intellectual property rights. However, in this process, the valve industry still suffers from poor awareness of patent rights protection, difficulty in rights protection, inadequacy of the system, and lack of conditions. It has become the biggest short board that restricts and confuses the patent enforcement of valves.

Dalian Dayang Valve Industry Co., Ltd., as a result of infringement of its own patents, brought the giant of the industry—Japan’s Dalian-based Changli Valve Co., Ltd. in China—to court and won all five lawsuits in six years. This is undoubtedly a great success for small and medium-sized valve companies. However, in the disputes of infringement and infringement, SMEs have spent a lot of human and financial resources, whether they are winning or losing.

One shot: the well-known product famous dispute

China's 11th National Games, China's "Ruyi" torch, will also involve patent infringement? In fact, due to the intrusion of the gas tank valves in the internal combustion system of the “Ruyi” torch, the “Ruyi” torch supplier of the 11th National Games of China – Zhongshan Huadi Gas Appliance Co., Ltd. was used by Beijing Power Machinery. The institute sued the court.

Although the technical features of Vantage Gas Company's addition of a guide chute between the tip of the accused infringing valve element with a straight bore end and the tooling groove have had additional technical effects, it cannot be denied that the “spool tape The essential technical feature of having a straight hole tip to the bottom of the valve body tooling groove has been embodied in the allegedly infringing product. Therefore, the court found that the allegedly infringing product fell into the scope of protection of the patented utility model and constituted infringement.

The Olympic products have a certain reputation. The defendant Huadi Gas Appliance Co., Ltd. provided the “Ruyi” torch with the “production and operation purpose”, gained commercial interests such as market awareness, and infringed the rights of the plaintiff Beijing Power Machinery Research Institute. Through the appeal, Beijing Power Machinery Research Institute obtained relevant compensation, and Vantage Gas Appliance Company also stopped the infringement, which is a relatively successful and influential case for the entire industry.

Early victory: The revolution is still unsuccessful

Zhejiang Aoxiang Auto Control Technology Co., Ltd. mainly produces electric actuators, electric valves and other products. It is a growing high-tech enterprise. In the five years since its establishment, the company has independently developed a number of industry-leading products and has more than 40 patents.

However, in 2011, the company’s after-sales service personnel received customer complaints that the quality of “Australia” products was not as good as before. After receiving the customer's complaint, the staff member checked the serial number of the product and found that the product was not produced by “Australian Xiang”. This made the company start to realize that their products were counterfeited.

After investigation and evidence collection, it was determined that the company's AOX actuator was infringed. Counterfeit products counterfeit the appearance of the product, but the internal materials and production processes could not be imitated. Due to the high technological content and high technological level of the product, the company's electric actuators are 20% more expensive than similar products of the same class.

In order to safeguard its own rights and interests, the company embarked on the road to rights protection. In June 2012, the company reached a settlement with a pneumatic valve manufacturing company in Yongjia County; in July of this year, the company won the intellectual property lawsuit of Wenzhou Auto Control Valve Co., Ltd.; in recent days, the company is busy preparing for August. The company’s intellectual property rights were infringed in the latter part of the trial.

Despite winning the lawsuit in the first two games, Ao Xiang has achieved victory. However, like Ocean Valves, there are still infringing products on the market, and the compensation obtained is far below expectations. The cost of infringement is low, and the cost of rights protection is quite high. The road for rights protection for valve companies remains long and arduous.

Innocent "in the gun": destroy wealth to disaster

In August 2003, Tongfa Co., Ltd. of Yangzhong City, Jiangsu Province, suddenly received a subpoena from the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court because Yuan Lizhong, the director of a valve factory in Wujiang City, the province, sued the company for infringement of patent rights. Products that were produced in accordance with national standards were falsely accused of infringement of patents, which made Tongfa Company inexplicable.

It is understood that Yuan Lizhong originally applied for a “garbage patent” in order to suppress peers and engage in unfair competition, using the relevant provisions of the “Patent Law,” and filed a lawsuit against him. In the face of such innocent "gunshots," Tongfa can only bite the bullet and each other. After many investigations and evidence collection, Tongfa Company produced a number of evidence to prove that the plaintiff’s patent was “junk”, but Yuan Lizhong insisted on continuing the lawsuit. In 2005, the court finally issued a judgment that Lee's patent rights were invalid.

For such an innocent "gunshot", Tongfa Company sued Yuan Lizhong to the court on the grounds of "malicious lawsuit." Although it eventually won the case, after many years of "accusation", the company lost tens of thousands of yuan in assets and spent money on it. The energy cannot be calculated.

As a fluid control device, the valve has a wide range of applications, but the domestic valve industry has low overall technical strength, low barriers to entry, low-end product price wars, and mid-range product counterfeiting and counterfeiting to disturb the market. Chinese valve companies cannot obtain high added value. Innovation and factual intellectual property strategy is the only way to change the status quo. Intellectual property protection in the early stage of the development of the industry is conducive to encouraging enterprises to gain more benefits through innovation and improvement of research and development capabilities. It is to promote the integration of the valve industry, nurture competitive enterprises, and create a batch of Valve brand hope.

However, as Xie Haibing, deputy general manager of “Hunan Pumps and Valves,” said, the weaknesses in corporate intellectual property work are mostly seen in the protection of intellectual property rights. The blind spot of patent applications is often to take only one point but ignore a group, resulting in patent-holding companies in the future. Seeing a passive situation in which others take advantage of gains but cannot defend their rights.