As market sales continue to grow, the patent battle for air conditioner giants is also escalating.
On April 24, the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court issued a first-instance judgment on six cases in which Zhuhai Gree Electric Appliance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Greeâ€) v. Ningbo Aux Air Conditioning Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Auxâ€) infringed the patent right. The three cases constituted patent infringement and ordered Oaks to compensate Gree for a total of 46 million yuan.
In an interview with the reporter of China Business News, the relevant staff of Oaks said that the company did not accept the judgment of the first instance, and appealed in court, and is currently collecting evidence; Gree also said that Gree and Oaks’ patent litigation cases Not finished, there is currently no information available for disclosure.
In recent years, the top five Gree, Midea, and Oaks patent disputes in the domestic market have continued to heat up. In this regard, the industry insiders analyzed that the reason why the air-conditioning giants continue to patent litigation, the company's awareness of patent protection has improved, and secondly, it has a close relationship with the market competition.
Oaks was awarded a compensation of 46 million in the first instance
Gree and Oaks' series of patent litigations have had preliminary results recently. On April 24, the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court issued a first-instance judgment on six cases in which Gree v. Oaks infringed the patent rights. Three of them constituted patent infringement. In addition to ordering Oaks to stop selling infringements, it was also required to compensate Gree for a total of 46 million. yuan.
One of the cases with a higher compensation amount has received much attention. Gree pointed out that the defendant Oaks produced, sold and promised to sell eight models of air-conditioning products using Gree's patented technology without authorization, infringing Gree's patent rights.
In this regard, the court held that the alleged infringing product fell within the protection scope of the plaintiff's Gree patent right, and the technical defense proposed by Oaks could not be established, and that Oaks immediately destroyed the special mold for infringing the infringing products and manufacturing the infringing products, and compensated Gree for economic losses and The reasonable cost of rights protection is 40 million yuan.
In the other two cases, Oaks’s act of manufacturing and suing the air conditioner was found to be infringement by the court, and Oaks constituted the evidence to impede the liability. Oaks was awarded a compensation of 6 million yuan for the Gree lawsuit.
For the case of compensation of 40 million yuan, the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court held that in 2016, the Oaks Intellectual Property Court had confirmed that the two models of products infringed the same patent rights of Gree, and continued to mass produce and sell the above-mentioned cases. Products, the nature of infringement is serious, the infringement is malicious, and it should be severely punished by law. Based on various factors, the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court stated that the plaintiff Gree’s claim of 40 million yuan was legally valid and did not exceed the reasonable scope, so it was fully supported.
Aux-related staff told reporters that the company did not accept the first-instance judgment, "the court filed an appeal and is currently collecting evidence." Gree Electric Appliances Market Minister Chen Zili also told reporters that Gree and Oaks' patent litigation case has not ended At present, no information is available for disclosure.
Air-conditioning patent battles continue
Gree and Oaks air-conditioning patent disputes can be traced back to 2015. In 2017, Gree and Oaks's air-conditioning patents have intensified.
In June 2017, Gree believed that Oaks' new Athena series of air conditioners in 2017 infringed Gree's patent entitled "Integral water tray and bottom shell integration", thus appealing to Oaks Air Conditioning to Guangdong Higher People's Court and claiming 110 million yuan, the largest amount of patent claims in the domestic appliance industry.
However, in response to Gree's many infringements in the motor installation, panel, and damper technology of air conditioners, Oaks subsequently filed a lawsuit with the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court, requesting Gree to pay more than 5,000 yuan.
Gree and Oaks' air-conditioning patent disputes can be described as strong gunpowder. As early as June 2017, Assistant Director of the Gree Intellectual Property Office, Wen Yuyu, told the media that since 2010, Oaks has dug away more than 300 core personnel of Gree's R&D and quality inspection departments through various improper methods. In addition, from 2015 to June 2017, the number of patent infringements that Oaks was sued by Gree reached 15. At that time, Oaks believed that Gree was a commercial means of prosecuting him and wanted to block the pace of his expansion.
On the other hand, Gree and Midea's air-conditioning patent battles are equally flickering. The reporter learned from the acceptance of the case information issued by the Beijing Intellectual Property Court WeChat Public on June 19, 2017 that Gree filed a lawsuit against the US-based "Refrigeration King" series of air conditioners for infringing Gree's relevant utility model patents and demanded compensation of 50 million yuan. .
For Gree's frequent initiation of air-conditioning patent litigation in recent years, Chen Zili told this reporter that "China must take the road of innovation-driven development and must respect intellectual property rights. Gree is not seeking a patent lawsuit for the purpose of claiming Chinese manufacturing companies. Intellectual property."
At present, patent disputes between air conditioner giants have become the norm. The reporter learned from the official website of the Patent Reexamination Board of the State Intellectual Property Office that in the multiple invalidation request decision issued on April 25, the home appliance enterprises such as Gree, Oaks, and Midea were involved.
Among them, Midea’s name for Gree is “air conditioner and its control methodâ€, “air cabinet air conditionerâ€, “air conditioner indoor unit and air conditionerâ€, and Oaks name is “an air conditioner decorative strip structureâ€, “air conditioner base†and “air conditioner indoor unitâ€. A number of patents filed a request for invalidation, and the Patent Reexamination Board made a decision on the invalidity of all or part of the patent. In addition, Oaks filed an invalidation request for the patent of Gree's name "air-conditioning indoor air deflector connection device", and all the patents were determined to be invalid.
Hongshi Bin, an observer of the home appliance industry, told reporters that the patent litigation between air-conditioning giants has been closely related to the improvement of patent protection awareness of enterprises, and it has also been closely linked to the stage of market competition. “The previous industry competition mainly focused on scale, channels, brands, etc. On the other hand, competition at the patent level means that the market is highly competitive."
The wave of expansion is hidden
The other side of the patent warfare is the rapid growth of the domestic air-conditioning market and fierce competition among brands.
In 2017, domestic household air conditioners ushered in a peak retail sales. The retail sales volume was 193.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.4%, and the retail volume was 56.14 million units, a year-on-year increase of 23.1%.
At the same time, major air-conditioning brands are also actively responding to the market. For example, Gree, Haier, Oaks, Changhong and Chigo have announced air-conditioning expansion plans in the near future.
Among them, Chigo plans to build an advanced machine manufacturing base with an annual output of 4 million sets of air conditioners. At the end of October 2017, the Oaks air-conditioning smart factory in Jiangshan, Zhangzhou was officially completed. It is estimated that the annual output will reach 7 million sets. Oaks said that it will invest 10 billion yuan in smart factories in the next three years.
In addition, the reporter learned in the announcement issued by Gree recently that the new air-conditioning base project is one of the key investment projects that Gree is planning and implementing. The Luoyang and Nanjing bases are under planning, and the Hangzhou base is under construction.
“First of all, from the demand side, the number of households with air conditioners in the domestic market in 2016 was 124, and the number of towns was 124, and that of rural areas was 47.6. Compared with Japan’s 248 air conditioners, the penetration rate is still very low, especially in the third and fourth grade markets. In the interview with the reporter, Wang Yongtao, senior research manager of Avi Cloud (AVC) Home Appliances Division, said that as the national urbanization strategy and the rural revitalization strategy continue to advance, the air-conditioning market will continue to grow, The demand space for the air-conditioning follow-up market still exists."
For the phenomenon that all major power companies expand air-conditioning capacity, Wang Yongtao believes that in addition to the strong demand for air-conditioning market in the past two years, another one is to improve production efficiency. “Air-conditioning is a seasonal product, and old production lines are difficult to meet the explosive demand of the market. It is necessary to carry out transformation of the production line and internet, and improve production efficiency."
However, this wave of expansion, the hidden dangers of air conditioning capacity overcapacity has also begun to stand out. Aowei Cloud Network (AVC) estimates that the total retail sales of domestic air conditioners will be 186 billion yuan in 2018, down 3.7% year-on-year; the total retail sales will be 53.13 million sets, down 5.4% year-on-year.
“The real estate policy began to tighten in 2017. The impact on air-conditioning can be seen from the data of the first quarter of 2018. The major cities with strict control in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have experienced negative growth, and demand continues to tighten, so for third- and fourth-tier cities. It is said that after two years of growth, part of the market demand has been released, and it is very difficult to maintain a high growth rate," Wang Yongtao said.
In addition, some analysts believe that when market demand declines, competition between brands will intensify, and in 2018, there will be more than a dozen new brands. The market "Matthew effect" will be more obvious. Some enterprises will be later The market is eliminated.
Avi Cloud (AVC) 2018 air conditioner quarterly report shows that the domestic air-conditioning market retail sales of 33.9 billion yuan, an increase of 14.9%, but compared with the 31.9% growth rate in the same period in 2017, the industry growth rate fell significantly.
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