Recently, the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court released the 2025 Typical Cases for Serving and Safeguarding Scientific and Technological Innovation, comprehensively reviewing and summarizing the court’s trial work on technology-related cases in 2025. Through a batch of typical cases, the Court clarified rules for intellectual property protection, safeguarded the vitality of innovation, and provided solid judicial services and guarantees for technological innovation, industrial innovation and institutional innovation.

The series of patent ownership disputes over laser printer motors, represented by Liushen Law Firm, was successfully selected into the aforesaid typical cases, and stands as the only patent ownership dispute case included in the list.

The case was represented by attorneys CHENG Chi and LIU Zhijie, with team members including AN Zhifei, YAN Jiajia, LI Yunxi and ZENG Yunpeng.

The following is an excerpt reposted from the official WeChat account of Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court, 2025 Typical Cases for Serving and Safeguarding Scientific and Technological Innovation, covering the case represented by Liushen Law Firm.

Accurately Defining Ownership of Service Inventions, Empowering Property Rights and Stimulating Innovation Vitality --- Case of the Series of Patent Ownership Disputes over Laser Printer Motors

Case Facts and Judgment

Company A claimed that XUE and CHEN, former employees of its R&D Department, established Han Company and Jia Company during their employment. Taking advantage of the core technical information mastered at the company and the material and technical resources provided by the company, the two employees maliciously filed seven utility model patents in the name of Han Company and Jia Company during their tenure and within one year after resignation, based on the undisclosed technical information of the Company A. The company filed a lawsuit, requesting confirmation that the seven utility model patents under the names of Han Company and Jia Company should be owned by itself. Han Company and Jia Company argued that the seven patents involved completely different technical fields with no connection between them, and that the Company A had never carried out relevant patent R&D activities, so the involved patents did not constitute service inventions.

After trial, the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court held that the technical solutions of the seven patents all relate to key components of laser printers, namely motor manufacturing and assembly parts or production equipment essential to the assembly process. The patents are closely interconnected and shall be considered as a whole rather than in isolation, and all the involved inventions are closely related to the core business of the plaintiff company. Evidential records proved that the involved inventions are highly relevant to the technical fields and job responsibilities of XUE and CHEN during their employment with the plaintiff, who had access to non-public information including customer demands, technical problems and corresponding solutions. Accordingly, the seven involved patents were deemed service inventions completed by the employees in performing their job duties or mainly utilizing the employer’s material and technical resources, and the patent rights should belong to the Company A. The first-instance court ruled that the seven utility model patents are owned by the plaintiff company. Dissatisfied with the first-instance judgment, Han Company and Jia Company filed an appeal. The Guangdong Higher People’s Court rendered the second-instance judgment: dismissing the appeal and upholding the original judgment. 

Typical Significance

This case serves as a typical precedent for judicially determining the ownership of service inventions and effectively stimulating the innovation initiative of innovators. The judgment clarifies the review criteria for relevance determination, confirming that the standard for judging the relevance of service inventions of in-service employees shall be appropriately lenient compared with that for resigned employees. It balances the interests of employers and guides researchers and technical personnel to engage in innovative creation, facilitating the transformation of service inventions into high-quality productive forces. The judgment also clarifies the adjudication logic for identifying service inventions, specifying that the determination shall focus on the technical field of employees’ regular duties and assigned tasks, as well as their daily work content and job responsibilities. The ruling further clarifies the judicial adjudication rules and criteria for service inventions, strikes a balance between protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the original employer and safeguarding resigned employees’ rights to free career choice and independent innovation, and provides practical guidelines for innovators to legally and effectively protect their technological innovation achievements.