China’s Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court on Feb. 22 released the list of top 10 exemplary cases of enforcing rights of scientific and technological innovators.

Shenzhen TPOWER Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (深圳天源中芯半导体有限公司) v. Foshan Blue Rocket Electronics Co., Ltd. (佛山市蓝箭电子股份有限公司), Shanghai Gcore Integrated Circuit Design Co., Ltd. (上海国芯集成电路设计有限公司)

Case docket no.:（2018）粤73民初2321号

Case docket no. transliteration: 2321, first instance (初), civil case (民), (2018) Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court (（2018）粤73)

Case summary: The court found that Blue Rocket and Gcore infringed the layout design of an integrated circuit developed by TPOWER and ordered the two defendants to pay 3 million yuan ($470,000) in damages to the plaintiff.

Jining Luohe Network Technology Co., Ltd. (济宁市罗盒网络科技有限公司) v. Guangzhou Wanyou Network Technology Co., Ltd. (广州市玩友网络科技有限公司), Shenzhen Guanzhunhang Technology Co., Ltd. (深圳冠准航科技有限公司), Shenzhen Aositan Technology Co., Ltd. (深圳奥斯坦科技有限公司), Xiangyun Industrial (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. (祥运实业（深圳）有限公司)

Case docket no.:（2019）粤73知民初207号

Case docket no. transliteration: 207, first instance (初), civil case (民), intellectual property (知), (2019) Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court (（2019）粤73)

Case summary: Luo Di developed the source code of an application called VirtualApp (VA) to be hosted on GitHub.com under the third version of the GNU General Public License (GPLV3). The GPL is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. Luo Di stopped updating the code on GitHub.com in December 2017 and assigned the code to plaintiff Luohe which he is a shareholder of for commercial use. Defendant TPOWER developed some paid WeChat-compatible applications using Luo Di’s source code hosted on GitHub.com. The court found that TPOWER violated the GPL by abusing the free source sode owned by Luohe and ordered it to pay 500,000 yuan ($79,000) in damages to the plaintiff. The claims against the other three defendants serving TPOWER as payment collectors of its paid applications were dimissed.

Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd. (OPPO广东移动通信有限公司), Shenzhen Unit of Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd. (OPPO广东移动通信有限公司深圳分公司) v. Sisvel International S.A. (西斯威尔国际有限公司), S.I.SV.EL. (Hong Kong) Ltd. (西斯威尔香港有限公司)

Case docket no.:（2020）粤73民初451号

Case docket no. transliteration: 451, first instance (初), civil case (民), (2020) Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court (（2020）粤73)

Case docket no.:（2019）粤73知民初1415号

Case docket no. transliteration: 1415, first instance (初), civil case (民), intellectual property (知), (2019) Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court (（2019）粤73)

Case summary: Oppo filed a lawsuit against Sisvel before the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court and claimed that Sisvel abused its dominance by charging an excessive licensing fee for its standard-essential patents (SEPs). Sisvel alleged that it had already sued Oppo in the UK to confirm the reasonableness of its licensing fee, and, to avoid overlapping jurisdiction over the same issues, only the UK court had jurisdiction over the case. In dismissing Sisvel's appeal, the Supreme People’s Court of China held that UK lawsuits could not deprive Chinese courts of jurisdiction since the parties' jural relationships, facts and grounds in the two cases were not exactly the same. The Chinese courts could claim jurisdiction also because the infringement lawsuits filed by Sisvel in the UK might directly, substantively and significantly eliminate or restrict Oppo's participation in market competition in China. This case clarified the jurisdiction rules over antitrust disputes in the context of SEP.

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (华为技术有限公司) v. Jabil Circuit Electronics (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. (捷普电子（广州）有限公司), SolarEdge Technologies (China) CO., Ltd. (所乐太阳能科技（上海）有限公司), Guangzhou SolarEdge Machinery Technical Consulting Co., Ltd. (广州所乐机械技术咨询有限公司)

Case docket no.:（2019）粤73知民初590号

Case docket no. transliteration: 590, first instance (初), civil case (民), intellectual property (知), (2019) Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court (（2019）粤73)

Case summary: The court found that Israel-headquartered SolarEdge’s Shanghai-based subsidiary and Guangzhou-based subsidiary infringed plaintiff Huawei’s patent for solar inverters by commissioning Jabil to manufacture and export infringing products and ordered the three defendants to pay 50 million yuan ($7.9 million) in damages to Huawei.

Milliken & Company (美利肯公司) v. Xuzhou Haitian Petrochemical Co., Ltd. (徐州海天石化有限公司), Dongguan Aimili Plastic Technology Co., Ltd. (东莞市艾米粒塑胶科技有限公司)

Case docket no.:（2019）粤73知民初1014号

Case docket no. transliteration: 1014, first instance (初), civil case (民), intellectual property (知), (2019) Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court (（2019）粤73)

Case summary: The court found that defendants Haitian and Aimili didn’t infringe plaintiff American industrial manufacturer Milliken & Company’s patent ZL201180068470.6 for lack of evidence.

Anthura B.V. (荷兰安祖公司), Kunming Anthura Horticulture Co., Ltd. (昆明安祖花园艺有限公司) v. Guangzhou Panyu Keyi Agriculture Technology Development Co., Ltd. (广州市番禺科艺农业科技开发有限公司)

Case docket no.:（2020）粤73知民初609号

Case docket no. transliteration: 609, first instance (初), civil case (民), intellectual property (知), (2020) Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court (（2020）粤73)

Case docket no.:（2020）粤73知民初610号

Case docket no. transliteration: 610, first instance (初), civil case (民), intellectual property (知), (2020) Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court (（2020）粤73)

Case summary: The court found that the anthurium variety defendant Keyi cultivated didn’t infringe the anthurium variety plaintiffs Netherlands-based Anthura and its Kunming-based subsidiary had patented. The court agreed to deploy the results of the DNA-based testing and distinctness, uniformity, and stability (DUS) assessments submitted by the plaintiffs as evidence.

Shanghai Tongling New Energy Technology Development Co., Ltd. (上海通凌新能源科技发展有限公司) v. Foshan Baiteli Agriculture Ecological Technology Co., Ltd. (佛山市百特利农业生态科技有限公司)

Case docket no.:（2019）粤73民初1960号

Case docket no. transliteration: 1960, first instance (初), civil case (民), (2019) Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court (（2019）粤73)

Case summary: The court found that plaintiff Tongling was entitled to the fund of 900,000 yuan ($140,000) it had advanced at the request of defendant Baiteli when the co-development cooperation was terminated between the two parties. The court ordered the defendant to refund the advanced payment to the plaintiff and dimissed the plaintiff’s additional claim of 1.5 million yuan ($240,000) as compensation for its share of the work in the co-development.

Guangzhou Fullriver Battery New Technology Co., Ltd. (广州丰江电池新技术股份有限公司) v. He (何远强)

Case docket no.:（2019）粤73知民初393号

Case docket no. transliteration: 393, first instance (初), civil case (民), intellectual property (知), (2019) Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court (（2019）粤73)

Case summary: The court found defendant He, an ex-employee of plaintiff Fullriver, stole the company’s patent for a technology for lithium batteries for e-cigarette devices. The court ordered the defendant to pay 300,000 yuan ($47,000) in damages to the plaintiff.

Dongguan Kaihua Electronic Co., Ltd. (东莞市凯华电子有限公司) v. Tongfang Co., Ltd. (同方股份有限公司), Tongfang International Information Technology (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. (同方国际信息技术（苏州）有限公司), Dongguan Jingdong Lisheng Trading Co., Ltd. (东莞京东利昇贸易有限公司)

Case docket no.:（2018）粤73民初3658号

Case docket no. transliteration: 393, first instance (初), civil case (民), intellectual property (知), (2019) Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court (（2018）粤73)

Case summary: The court found the doctrine of equivalents didn’t apply in this case and the notebook computers the three defendants manufactured and distributed didn’t infringe the plaintiff’s patent ZL201610802371.0.

LeDiamond Opto Corporation (雷盟光电股份有限公司) v. Zhongshan Mago Lighting Co., Ltd. (中山市美高照明有限公司)

Case docket no.:（2020）粤73知民初57号

Case docket no. transliteration: 57, first instance (初), civil case (民), intellectual property (知), (2020) Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court (（2020）粤73)

Case summary: The court found defendant Mago acted with malice and intentionally infringed Taiwan-based LED manufacturer LeDiamond’s patent ZL201420776830.9 repetitively and punished the defendant under the terms of punitive damages of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China as punitive damages provisions were absent from patent law before June 1, 2021.

The full text is available here.