With the rapid development of the economy and the process of globalization, the number of patent applications and grants in China has increased year by year, and the number of design patents has increased at an astonishing rate. However, as the number of patents grows, so does the problem of infringement. The infringement of appearance patents not only damages the legitimate rights and interests of the patentee, but also seriously affects the image and reputation of China's intellectual property protection.
Design patent infringement refers to the act of infringing the design patent right of another person in the act of manufacturing, selling, using, offering to sell, etc., without the permission of the patentee. The infringement of a design patent will not only bring economic losses to the patentee, but also cause damage to the interests of consumers. Therefore, it is necessary to crack down on and sanction the infringement of design patents. So how to sue for appearance patent infringement?Is there a need for an evaluation report?
Guide to Litigation for Infringement of Patents for Appearances:
Determine the validity of one's own patent rights.
Patent infringement litigation is a highly professional legal activity, before initiating a lawsuit, carefully verify the stability of one's own rights, whether there is prior disclosure, and whether there is a possibility of invalidation, if after searching and analyzing, it is found that there is a high probability of invalidation, you can consider negotiating with the other party to appropriately reduce the amount of compensation claims or royalties, so as to preserve the patent right and obtain appropriate compensation.
Identification of the choice of perpetrator and accused.
In the selection of defendants, try to focus on the large and the small, and focus on the manufacturers, large channel providers, and defendants with a large area of infringement impact. To control the defendant is to control costs and make rational use of judicial resources, without wasting and useless work.
Gather evidence. Evidence collection is the core and key to patent rights protection, and evidence collection is carried out in a timely manner. It mainly includes the following evidence:1Evidence of the alleged infringer, including its name, address, nature of the enterprise, registered capital, number of personnel, business scope, etc.;2.Evidence of infringement facts, including physical objects of infringing goods, product catalogs, sales invoices, purchase and sale contracts, etc.;3.Evidence of infringement damages, including sales volume, sales time, sales**, cost of sales and sales profit of the allegedly infringing products.
Consultation and negotiation with the alleged infringer.
Patent infringement litigation is a means rather than an end, and through this means, the direct goal that the right holder wants to achieve is generally to stop the infringement and obtain compensation for the infringement. If the purpose of the right holder can be achieved through negotiation and negotiation, the lawsuit can be withdrawn to save the cost of protecting the rights of the enterprise.
Timing of prosecution.
In order to minimize the loss of infringement, the sooner the time to file a lawsuit, the better. Of course, the premise is that the litigation is fully prepared and sufficient evidence has been gathered. If patent litigation is used as a means to achieve the strategic goals of the enterprise, you can choose other strategic opportunities that are most beneficial to you.
Is it necessary to evaluate the report in a lawsuit?
In a design patent infringement lawsuit, an evaluation report is not required, but it can be provided to the court as one of the evidences. The evaluation report is an assessment report on the value of the patent and the risk of infringement issued by a professional institution or person, and its content generally includes the assessment of the innovation, practicability and market prospect of the patent, as well as the risk of infringement and suggestions. The evaluation report can help the parties better understand the value of the patent and the risk of infringement, and provide a reference for litigation.
However, we generally recommend that enterprises pay to make one, and even many rights holders spend their own money to invalidate their own patents, which is really 6
And finally:
Because the evidence in patent cases is not only complex, but also involves evidence of infringement such as infringement and evidence of compensation such as infringement profitsMoreover, it often involves professional patent technical issues, and the defendant will often raise the prior art defense, patent validity defense, etc., and initiate the patent invalidation defense in parallel in the infringement lawsuit.