Patent invalidation administrative lawsuit (Selected in Annual 50 typical IP lawsuits by Supreme Court in 2015)

Introduction: How to determine whether a claim which contains numerical range is inventive.

Abstract:  We represent the petitioner in patent invalidation proceeding of this case. This patent has been declared invalid under two invalidation proceedings of Patent Reexamination Board, then through first and second trial of administrative litigation proceedings in Beijing No.1 Intermediate Court and Beijing High Court, the Supreme People's Court finally refused Nihon Superior’s application of retrial, the whole process taking eight year. In the ruling of rejecting the retrial application, Supreme Court supported our perspective and held that: to determine whether the included numerical range claim is inventive or not, one shall consider whether the technical effect of the numerical range compared with prior art produces a qualitative change, a new performance, or a quantitative change beyond people's expectation. If there is no above changes or new performance, the claim has no inventiveness.