On 8 hot searches a week, Dong Mingzhu was also labeled as a marketing master.
On December 26, the topic of "Dong Mingzhu said that the mine air conditioner made miners go from ** to work to wearing suits" appeared on the hot search.
In the CCTV financial forum broadcast recently, Dong Mingzhu said that Gree Electric used 1700 million yuan of funds, successful research and development. However, the amount of mine air conditioning is small, and she believes that it is impossible to earn back the R&D investment at present, and the value of mine air conditioning is to allow miners to go to work in a high temperature environment to wear suits.
In this regard, some netizens said, "Why do you want workers to wear suits?".”
Recently, "Miss Dong" has been frequently active on the Internet, and not long ago, she was on the hot search 8 times a week because of her repeated mentions of Meng Yutong, saying that she "used the wrong person and had problems with her eyesight".
This side is constantly actively marketing, and the other side has a dispute with an "old acquaintance".
On December 26, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily learned that the first-instance judgment of two invention patent infringement dispute cases, including Oaks Air Conditioning Co., Ltd. and Zhuhai Gree Electric Co., Ltd., was announced.
According to the judgment released by the Intermediate People's Court of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the plaintiff Oaks Company filed a lawsuit on the grounds of infringement of the invention patent right of "compressor", and demanded that the defendant Gree Company compensate for economic losses and reasonable rights protection expenses totaling 3,996170,000 yuan and 33.32 million yuan.
According to the plaintiff, the patent application was filed on August 11, 2000, and was granted on September 29, 2004, and was subsequently transferred to Oaks. The defendant, Gree, argued that the patent in question had undergone three transfers of rights, and Oaks had not fulfilled its due burden of proof as to its continuous and complete rights during the period of the alleged infringement. The compressor involved in the case was purchased by Gree Company from Zhuhai Lingda Compressor *** and paid a reasonable consideration, and Gree Company has legal *** and does not bear the liability for compensation.
After the trial, the court held that Oaks, as the patentee of the invention patent involved in the case, had the right to file an infringement lawsuit within the validity period of the patent.
In the end, the courts of the two cases ruled that Gree Electric Appliance Company should compensate Oaks Company for economic losses and reasonable expenses of 33.03 million yuan and 25.46 million yuan respectively.
In fact, Gree's fight with Oaks has been going on for ten years.
As early as 2013, Dong Mingzhu, the "head" of Gree, directly accused Oaks of poaching his own talents, saying that Oaks moved these recruited talents from Zhuhai to Ningbo to work for the new owner.
Later, in 2015, Gree Electric took Oaks to court, accusing Oaks of allegedly infringing 3 utility model patents of Gree Electric, and finally Gree Electric won the lawsuit, and Oaks was sentenced to compensate Gree Electric with 2.3 million yuan.
In May 2020, the patent infringement case that lasted nearly three years was finally settled, and the court sentenced Oaks to compensate Gree Electric 40 million yuan.
Not long ago, on July 18, 2023, Zhuhai Gree Electric Appliance Co., Ltd. added a new court announcement that the related case was Gree Electric Appliance suing Oaks Air Conditioning Co., Ltd. and other seven defendants for infringement of trade secrets, and claimed 99 million yuan.
In June 2019, Gree Electric Appliances issued the "Report Letter on the Production and Sales of Substandard Air Conditioning Products by Oaks Air Conditioning Co., Ltd.", pointing out that some air conditioners in Oaks have a large gap with their advertised and nominal energy efficiency values.
However, Oaks' counterattack is also quite sharp, it is understood that Oaks bought the compressor patent of Toshiba air conditioner, and then sued Gree Electric for infringement. In August 2022, the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court made a patent infringement judgment in the case in the first instance, and sentenced Gree Electric to compensate a total of about 55 million yuan, plus in December 2021, the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court compensated Oaks about 16.7 billion yuan, in other words, Oakes has obtained more than 2 yuan in compensation in the "compressor case".200 million yuan.
What is puzzling is that Oakes is not in the same order of magnitude as Gree, what is Gree worried about?
Industry observer Hong Shibin believes that unlike other household appliances, in the case of high market penetration and limited growth, the air conditioning brands have not been able to check and balance each other, to achieve a balance of power, but to further "involution", even if the two companies are different in size, but they are eating the same "cake", under the trend of long-term overcapacity of domestic air conditioning capacity, the enthusiasm of enterprises to expand production is still high, nothing more than to lead their peers, even if there is only one step.
In addition, air conditioning products are also following the general trend of "pushing new and selling expensive", and companies are unwilling to give up the parity market while entering the high-end market.
Editor丨Yang Bo Comprehensive Beijing Business Daily (reporter Tao Feng Wang Zhuli), Daily Economic News, Interface News.
*丨Screenshot of Beijing Business Daily, Tianyancha official website, Yitu.com, Weibo comment screenshot, pear ** screenshot, Dong Mingzhu from *** screenshot.