Recently, the Guangdong Higher People’s Court rendered its second-instance judgment in a patent ownership dispute between a well-known South Korean high-speed motor manufacturer and another company, ruling that all seven involved Chinese patents shall be awarded to the plaintiff. Acting as legal counsel for the plaintiff, the Liu Shen team successfully assisted the client in reclaiming full ownership of all disputed patents through meticulous evidence collection and streamlined litigation strategy formulation.
The plaintiff, a leading enterprise in the field of high-speed motors for laser printers, has long specialized in this niche market. It has gained wide industry recognition and a solid market reputation thanks to its profound technological accumulation and continuous innovation capabilities. The dispute arose after several former employees left the plaintiff and subsequently filed multiple patent applications during their employment with the defendant. The patented technologies were found to be highly relevant to the employees’ former job duties at the plaintiff, prompting the plaintiff to initiate proceedings to confirm patent ownership.
The seven patents at issue are closely interconnected, covering motor components as well as production equipment used in the assembly process. Rather than treating each technical solution in isolation, the Liu Shen team adopted an integrated approach by presenting the entire manufacturing and assembly workflow of high-speed motors, clarifying the respective technical links of the seven patents within the industrial process. Combined with supporting technical materials, the team fully demonstrated that all patents were closely related to the former employees’ core job responsibilities at the plaintiff. The court fully adopted the litigation arguments and core reasoning put forward by the Liu Shen team, ultimately holding that all seven patents qualified as service inventions and that the patent rights legally belong exclusively to the plaintiff.
By formulating a case-specific litigation strategy and leveraging the inherent connection among the multiple patents, the Liu Shen team resolved the ownership of all seven patents in a single proceeding, effectively fulfilling the client’s objectives and reducing procedural burdens. Throughout the case handling process, the team professionally safeguarded the client’s legitimate intellectual property interests and received high praise from the client.
The legal team handling this case comprises AN Zhifei, CHENG Chi, LIU Zhijie, YAN Jiajia and LI Yunxi.
