Motorola has announced the favorable results of a a lawsuit it filed against a Chinese company for patent infringement.
In 2007, Motorola filed the suit against Guangzhou Weierwei Electronic Science and Technology Company because Weierwei’s two-way radio model number VEV 3188 was claimed to fall within the scope of a Motorola Chinese design patent.
Motorola says last December the First Intermediate People’s Court of Beijing determined that the VEV 3188 two-way radio infringed Motorola’s design patent, and Weierwei was ordered to cease the manufacture and sales of VEV 3188 two-way radios and to financially compensate Motorola.
For those of you who care about these things, take note of three details: first, although the defendant is a Guangzhou company, the case was heard by Beijing’s 1st Intermediate Court (the IP department, one would assume). Good reason for coming up here to litigate instead of trying it in Guangzhou, including the threat of local protectionism.
Second, notice the underlying IP at issue here, a design patent. For all of you who deride these things as "junk patents," remember that a design is just as good as any other kind of IP as long as it isn’t invalidated. I assume this one was robust and did not have any pesky novelty problems or other skeletons in its proverbial closet.
Third, and unless there was a typo somewhere, the case was filed in 2007 and adjudicated the same year! Yes, this is possible if the case was simple and there was no appeal, although I’m still quite impressed. The article does not mention if an appeal is likely, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Congrats to Motorola.