Gree sued midea for patent infringement of air conditioning. On June 27th in the afternoon, the first financial journalist learned from beauty that last week, midea air-conditioning successively in suzhou and guangzhou, three patent infringement lawsuits filed against the gree, including 1 invention patent and 2 patents of utility model, the claim amount reached 40 million yuan.
Right now, it's the high season for air conditioning in the middle of the summer, and the patent lawsuits of gree and midea are coming to me, which shows that technology patents are becoming a new weapon in the industry's competition. From price competition, product competition, channel competition and brand competition to patent competition, the industry still wants the two giants to be rational and avoid vicious competition despite the escalating competition level.
Beauty is no longer passive
Recently, gree sued midea and its sales company in Beijing, said that the "refrigeration king" series air conditioning infringes on the new patent, and claims 50 million yuan. At present, the Beijing IP court has accepted the case, and midea has filed an application for civil jurisdiction. The case is being further tried.
This is not the first time that gree has sued midea. In 2008, gree launched a lawsuit against the "sleeping" function of the air conditioner "sleeping in accordance with custom curves". In 2012, gree sued the United States for the infringement of its "removable air conditioner piping installation baffle" utility model patent; In 2013, gree sued midea "wugu fengdeng" trademark infringement. In these cases, the two sides win and lose.
Unlike in the past, beauty no longer passively sued, but resolutely "tit-for-tat".
This year on June 21, midea air-conditioning to suzhou city intermediate people's court, suing gree air conditioning "wheel shaft wind flow" infringement of a patent for invention, demanding gree immediately stop the infringing act, and pay 30 million yuan of tort compensation cost. It is understood that the intermediate people's court of suzhou has accepted the case.
On June 26, the beautiful air conditioning to guangzhou intellectual property court, suing gree air conditioning for two utility model patents infringement, one patent technology simplify the packaging and placement of air conditioner accessories, improves the reliability the installation of air conditioning. Midea demands that gree stop the infringement and pay compensation of 5 million yuan for each of the two infringements. At present, guangzhou intellectual property court has accepted these two cases.
In the first place, the United States has invested heavily in technological research and development, aiming to catch up with its rivals in technological innovation. According to a 2016 Thomson Reuters study, the number of technology patents in the United States ranks first in household appliances and kitchen appliances worldwide. Secondly, midea and gree have a very close share of domestic air conditioning market, and beauty is not afraid to "take a hard look". From last week, Mr D cloud network (AVC) 618 air conditioning battle report, published this year "6.18" electrical daqo presses, air conditioning king pin in the share of the top ten brand retail amount, gree, midea to occupy the first and second name, their share is 26%, 25%, in turn both differ only one percent.
Patent competition will become the new normal
For each patent gree, midea, Mr D cloud network assistant dean yan-bin zhang, President and air conditioning industry analysis to the first financial journalist first, enterprise competition to a new height. In the past, the competition has been in the marketing level, and now it is up to the patent level, which can reflect the high-end from the low end. Secondly, the awareness of the intellectual property rights of enterprises is strengthened, which can be spent on maintaining their own intellectual property rights. Third, the means of competition is legalized. In the past, the competition was mainly through the war of words, but now it is up to the legal level. It can be seen that home appliance enterprises are not only relying on market means, but have already begun to apply legal weapons.
In fact, not only beauty, gree, the patent competition in home appliance industry has become more and more, especially in the competition between Chinese and foreign enterprises.
On April 18 this year, the sweeping robot manufacturers, iRobot to rival lawsuits, 11 charges they violated the company's six patents, has been accused of objects, including three Chinese companies and eight foreign companies, including shenzhen wisdom science and technology co., LTD, suzhou lai treasure electric appliance co., LTD., shenzhen silver star intelligent technology co., LTD., as well as the Bissell, Hoover, royal electrical appliance manufacturing co., LTD., bObsweep, Black & Decker, etc.
About the patent litigation, the iRobot board chairman, CEO and founder colin Angle, in Shanghai on May 17, an exclusive interview with the financial journalist said, "enter a market, others have an advantage, look at the front of the person what to do, can learn, reproduction technology, cost would not be so high. So, the first created this kind of technology patents, intellectual property is to be used for protection." IRobot spent $100 million on research and development in 2017, angell said. The proceeds of patent protection will continue to be invested in future innovations. In fact, China's sweeping robotics business is on the rise. "China is an important market and opportunity for iRobot," he says.
Therefore, patent litigation is one of the means by which industry leaders clean up the market. Of course, the main opponent's heavy punch.
In the next generation of technology OLED competition, South Korea's two giants have been waging a patent war. Four or five years ago, LGD sued samsung electronics for five of its products, including the Galaxy S smartphone and the Galaxy Tab tablet, which infringed on its own OLED technology patents. Samsung then filed a lawsuit against LGD, asking the court to invalidate seven patents in OLED panels. Later, the two stopped competing for 11 months of patents.
Therefore, do not blame "miss dong" so sharp, raise patent stick. In intellectual property protection, public information, under the leadership of the chairman and chief executive of gree electric appliances in ms dong, formed "upstream suppliers - rivals - downstream customers" "industrial chain" working mode and form of patent operation system, gain good economic benefits.
However, the use of patent weapons is not a "patent" of gree. Midea group executives had said, infringed on compressor is rather than for a patent for invention contains shape, structure, improvement of utility model patents, "arguably the most household appliance enterprises have violated our patent. 2016 inside someone offered to engage in a lawsuit, we didn't Sue, it will offend the whole industry, and it is not necessary. Now that gree Sue us, that we are not at all."
From the counterclaim of the present beauty, the spearhead mainly fired back at gree, and did not affect the whole industry. Analysts in the home industry have called for the two sides to be rational and avoid vicious competition to "harm the fish" despite the growing level of competition between gree and midea.
