Why Apple Store’s Design Patent Application is Not Necessary? II

The post will be published on our website for two days, and today is the second half of it. (the image is the picture of Apple Store in Lujiazui from the www.apple.com.cn)

III. The legal risk in the lawsuit filed against design infringement

Furthermore, once Apple initiate the lawsuit basing on the design, it may be trapped in the patent validity and serial lawsuits, and it’s also a common challenge of patent lawsuits in China.

1. The poor stability of design patent

Despite the design patent is granted by the administration after approval, the organ will not examine the novelty and creativity of the patent applied for it being instable at all. For example, in the design dispute between SECO and HONDA (note: the link is in Chinese), when HONDA sued against SECO for the claimed plagiarism of SECO’s S-RV to its CR-V, the defendant filed the application of patent validity, and present the evidence including the previous design patent applied by HONDA.

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Why Apple Store’s Design Patent Application is Not Necessary? I

The post will be published on our website for two days, and today is the first half of it. (the image is the picture of Apple Store in Lujiazui from the www.apple.com.cn)

By the report of Shanghai Daily, Apple Inc filed an application to the United State Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for the appearance design of its store in Lujiazui, Pudong New Area. In consideration of the fake Apple Store in Kuning, Yunan Province in south and west China, the application made this time may be the international application, and will enter into China soon to stem the flooding knock off stores. More interesting is that the journalist of the Daily interviewed our attorneys before the report, and we reserved our opinion on the application. To complete our comments on it, here’s our analysis on the issue:

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What If the Patent Infringement Lawsuit Apple vs HTC in China?

Which Chinese authority has the jurisdiction over the patent infringement?

Recently, the International Trade Commission of United State ruled on the patent conflict between Apple and HTC, determining that HTC has infringed the No.647 patent of Apple iPhone and banning the import of HTC’s smart phone with this patent feature from 19th, April, 2012.

For the case, Bridge IP Law Commentary would like to discuss a problem that which authority shall have the jurisdiction over the conflict shall it occurred in China? In fact, there’s no similar administration like ITC in China considering the IPR conflict with foreign products involved, and the administration duty on the infringement combat mainly focuses on the fake patent, namely those products claimed being patented or claiming owning others patent. Although the administration will handle some patent conflicts of unlicensed using, the complicated dispute, like the one between Apple and HTC, is mainly handled by the court.

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