The battery patent lawsuits between Chinese battery manufacturers CALB and CATL took another turn as CALB lost a patent infringement lawsuit brought by its bigger rival.
CALB, which is listed in Hong Kong, was ordered to stop selling the products involved in the case and pay damages by the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court in Fujian province on 29 November, it said in a statement. The court ordered the company to stop selling products that infringe CATL’s patent rights for its inventions.
The company is also required to pay CATL RMB 2.63 million ($368,000) in damages and RMB 127,500 ($18,020) in costs for the temporary protection period of the invention patent. Costs of RMB 200,000 ($28,000) were ordered to be paid to CATL, which is listed on the Shenzen stock exchange.
In response, CALB said its products had more advanced technologies that are completely different from the earlier technologies named in the lawsuit. It had applied to the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) for the named patents to be declared invalid.
It said the Administration declared them partially invalid in April and CALB appealed in June against this.
“CALB disagreed with the CNIPA’s determination that part of the rights claims of the patents involved in the litigation remained valid,” the company said. It will appeal against this first instance judgement to the Supreme Court.
“There are no circumstances under which the sale of the products involved in the litigation shall be suspended immediately as mentioned in the judgment. Therefore, the judgment in this announcement will not have an adverse effect on the current and future production and operation,” it said in its statement.
In July, CATL said for the first time that it had formally sued CALB for patent infringement, claiming that the batteries used in tens of thousands of vehicles were in infringement.
