Case Brief:

The respondent, a well-known clothing company in Guangzhou, is a subsidiary of a certain well-known listed company in Hong Kong, which has been engaged in clothing design and production for many years and operates multiple clothing brands that have extremely high reputation in China. The respondent designs and produces multiple cloth lines with infringing magnetic buttons, and is engaged in sales and promised sales on Taobao, JD, WeChat Mall and other network platforms. The above acts seriously violate the patent rights of Fidlock.

In the good faith of solving the infringement of the company through friendly negotiation, Fidlock sent a reminder letter to the company on March 9, 2022, informing the company that the overall structure and component features of the magnetic button accessories used in the clothing products publicly sold and promised to be sold in Taobao, Tmall official flagship stores, JD official flagship stores, WeChat official stores and the like at least comply with all the features defined in independent claim 1 of the patent involved in the case. However, within several months after receiving the reminder letter, the company, knowing that the acts thereof have constituted infringement, has always held a negative attitude towards the settlement, and puts off the negotiation process in the name of reconciliation while still refusing to stop the relevant infringement acts.

After several months of ineffective negotiation, Fidlock could only take legal measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests and filed a patent administrative dispute resolution request with the Intellectual Property Office of Guangzhou Development Area on August 12, 2022. On August 16, 2022, the Intellectual Property Office of Guangzhou Development Area accepted the request for administrative settlement of the patent infringement dispute, set up a collegiate panel for the examination of the case according to law, and arranged a field inspection before an oral hearing. On December 9, 2022, the collegiate panel presided over the oral hearing and fully listened to the detailed statements of Unitalen attorneys and the respondent on the case. Subsequently, the Intellectual Property Office of Guangzhou Development Area made a ruling on December 13 that the alleged infringing products fell within the protection scope of patents of Fidlock, and ordered the respondent to immediately stop sales and promised sales of the clothing with "magnetic buttons" infringing the patent involved in the case.

So far, with the efforts of Fidlock and the litigation team of Unitalen, Unitalen client Fidlock won again in patent administrative rights protection.

Case analysis:

Unitalen client Fidlock achieved a rapid and comprehensive victory in patent administrative rights protection, which once again highlighted the unique advantages of intellectual property administrative procedure in reducing dispute resolution costs and improving efficiency in resolving dispute cases.