CPA's Winning Case on Behalf of European Client Selected as One of the Top 10 Patent Reexamination and Invalidation Cases 2020 

Ahead of the 21st edition of the World Intellectual Property Day on 26 April 2021, China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) announced its Top Ten Patent Reexamination and Invalidation Cases for year 2020, which were selected from CNIPA's concluded reexamination and invalidation cases of the year, amounting to 48,000 and 7,000 respectively according to CNIPA's statistics.

 

China Patent Agent (H.K.) Ltd. (CPA) is glad to report that a winning case our firm handled on behalf of its European client is on CNIPA's 2020 top ten list. In this case, CPA's attorney team successfully defended its client's rights in a jersey knitting machine patent in the invalidation proceedings, and maintained the validity of the patent in China. This case involves multiple points of dispute, including whether the specification of the patent at issue fully discloses the technical solution to be protected, whether the claims are clear, and whether the invention is novel and inventive relative to the existing technology.

 

The collegial panel in its ruling held that in arriving at the meaning of a specific technical term or technical feature in a claim, one should first understand the conventional meaning of the term or feature in literal sense, then decide on the meaning by taking into account the specific technical solution of the description and drawings from the standpoint of a person in skilled in the pertinent art, and these two understandings should ultimately point to a sole and accurate interpretation of the technical solution in the claim at issue. The case is exemplary in the sense that it provides a line of thinking for accurate understanding of the meaning of a specific technical term in patent examination, and sheds light on the role played by internal evidence of the patent at issue in accurately understanding a technical term.

 

Patent reexamination and invalidation, as the administrative procedures for patent grant and validation, are essential elements of the IP protection mechanism. And the top ten list represents CNIPA's choices among the patent reexamination and invalidation cases that are high-profile, influential, and capable of clarifying patent examination standards.