Chen applied for a profile design patent called "**Trim" in December 2005. This profile is used for the production of art glass. After the patent was granted, Chen discovered that Jiang was later manufacturing and selling the same art glass. Chen believed that the profile of the "** decorative strip" used in the art glass manufactured by Jiang was similar to his patent, so he took Jiang to court and requested the court to order: the defendant Jiang stopped selling the infringing products; the three defendants The infringing product was destroyed; the three defendants jointly compensated the plaintiff for losses of 200,000 yuan. As a design patent infringement dispute, the special feature of this case is that in general design patent disputes, the alleged infringing product itself is an independent and complete product. However, the "** trim strip" in this case is mainly It is used for inlaying and decoration in glass doors and windows. It plays a beautifying role and is often integrated with the glass doors and windows and cannot be separated.
This creates a problem: the manufacturers of glass doors and windows (defendants Jiang and Zhang in this case) purchased the accused infringing product (** trim strips ) and then embed and integrate it into other products (hollow art glass) (and sell the hollow art glass), is it an act of "use" or "production" of the accused infringing product? And "sales" behavior? Because according to Article 11 of the "People's Republic of China", the implementation behavior of conceptual design patented products only includes "manufacturing, promising to sell (revised and added in 2008), selling, and importing other products for production and business purposes" "Design patented products" does not include "use". In other words, even if the alleged infringing product falls within the scope of protection of the plaintiff’s patented graphics, as long as the defendant only “uses” the patented product, there is no possibility of infringement. The non-prohibition of the use of design patented products is a very significant difference between my country's patent law and the protection system for designs, inventions and utility models.
[Analysis]
In this case, Jiang and his wife purchased ** trim strips. Cutting them, reconnecting them, matching them with other decorations, and finally making them into other products (glass doors and windows) is just an act of "using" the profiles from beginning to end. In fact, this is also determined by the function of the product itself, that is, as a material for the production of other products, its users or target customers are not the general public, but only processing enterprises of other products; When other companies process it together with other profiles into other products, its performance as a profile has been exhausted.
When consumers buy art glass, what attracts consumers is not just the "high-quality decorative strip profiles", but what actually attracts consumers is the overall artistic effect shown by the pattern formed by the profiles and other decorations. The court of first instance held that the plaintiff failed to provide evidence to prove that the defendant Jiang produced the allegedly infringing product; although after comparison at trial, it could be determined that the ** decorative strips in the defendant's glass products fell into the "** decorative strips" of the plaintiff's patented graphics involved. However, according to the "Patent Law of the People's Republic of China", "After a design patent right is granted, no unit or individual may exploit the patent without the permission of the patentee, that is, it shall not manufacture or offer for sale for production and business purposes (2008 "Newly added in the revision), sell and import products with patented designs", the use of defendants Jiang and Zhang did not constitute infringement, and Chen's lawsuit was dismissed.
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