On April 20, 2020, on the occasion of the 20th World Intellectual Property Day, Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court and the Municipal Market Supervision Administration (Municipal Intellectual Property Office) jointly held a press conference and issued the "2019 Hangzhou Intellectual Property Protection White Paper" and "Top Ten Cases of Intellectual Property Judicial Protection in Hangzhou Courts in 2019".

　　“These ten cases were all tried by the Hangzhou Intellectual Property Court or the primary courts under the Hangzhou Intermediate Court, whose judgment took legal effect in 2019. Last year, the Hangzhou courts concluded 16,869 first and second instance IP cases. The ten cases were selected considering their social influence, the innovation and typical significance in the application of law, and the guiding role for the judgment of similar cases or related subjects, covering the four major intellectual property fields, namely, copyright, trademark right, patent right and unfair competition."

　　Among these ten major cases, our company was entrusted by Sony (China) Co., Ltd. and acted as an agent in response to "Hangzhou Saixuan Technology Co., Ltd v. China Resources Sun Hung Kai Properties (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd., and Sony (China) Co., Ltd. for infringement of invention patent dispute". The first-instance judgment found that the alleged infringing product lacked multiple technical features as described in claim 1 and did not fall within the scope of protection of the patent right involved. Saixuan’s request was rejected, and the second-instance verdict rejected the appeal and maintained the original judgment.

　　This case was selected on the following ground: “In patent infringement cases, the interpretation of claims has always been very difficult but important in trials. It is significant in the determination of the scope of patent protection and the determination of infringement. In this case, the question of how to interpret claims according to patent examination documents, valid patent right authorization and confirmation verdicts and other materials was further explored, making it clear that the patentee's claims in patent infringement litigation cannot exceed the limitation of the scope of protection made in the patent invalidation procedure to maintain the effectiveness of the patent right, and technical solutions that have been excluded as background technology in the invalidation procedure cannot be re-incorporated into the scope of patent protection by applying equivalent rules. The judgment in this case made great exploration in the reasonable interpretation of claims in judicial cases and scientific definition of the scope of patent protection, which shows positive significance in guiding inventors to draft claims reasonably."

　　In this case, the attorneys representing Sony (China) Co., Ltd. were Ms. Wang Yushuang and Ms. Zhao Jing, and the assistant attorney was patent engineer Mr. Gao Si. Among them, Ms. Wang Yushuang and Ms. Zhao Jing were also attorneys for the two invalidation cases.