Recently, a dispute over infringement of a design patent represented by my lawyer for a client defendant has been supported by the court, and both the first and second instance courts have determined that the infringement is not established.
The plaintiff Shanghai Baogong Tools Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Baogong Company) appealed, claiming that a robotic arm toy produced and sold by the defendant Shantou Zhonggui Toy Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhonggui Company) infringed its appearance design patent ZL201530437461.0, and requested the court to order Zhonggui Company to compensate Baogong Company 50000 yuan.
After investigation, the first instance court rejected all of Baogong Company's claims. Baogong Company appealed to the Guangdong Provincial High People's Court against the judgment.

                    Our customer's toy product real-life photos

During the second trial, although Baogong Company submitted new evidence, after careful comparison, the court found that there were significant differences between the accused infringing product and the patented design product in terms of the shape of the robotic arm and base, and these differences accounted for a large proportion of the area and were easily noticed by consumers. Therefore, the first instance court found that the two did not constitute similarity and were legal and well founded.

In the end, the second instance court upheld the first instance judgment and rejected Baogong Company's appeal request.

The following is the full text of the judgment:

Full text of the judgment