Mr. Chen Jun: How to choose a patent litigation lawyer

　　Patent litigation is a type of extremely professional litigation. Not all practicing lawyers are competent. When a patent litigation case is encountered, whether or not a professional lawyer can be selected among thousands of lawyers will largely determine the success or failure of the case. Anhui Hefei Chen Jun intellectual legal service team lawyers combined with team experience in handling cases, now make the following selection tips for reference:

　　I. Whether lawyers are familiar with patent litigation procedures

　　The author had contacted a case in which the client entrusted him with another colleague. Since the client did not make any progress in the case of establishing an entrustment relationship with the client, the author was dismissed to find the author. However, when I was involved in the case, I discovered that the principal who was the defendant did not submit an invalid application for the utility model patent during the defense period. According to the Supreme People's Court’s relevant judicial interpretations, utility model and design cases, the application for invalidation was filed within the defense period, and the court accepted the case and terminated the case without special reasons. Since the right was not claimed during this period, the court made a judgment against the defendant in the subsequent trial due to the pressure of the case's closing rate. On the other hand, if the patent involved in this case is slightly searched for patents, it will be found that the patent has no creativity.

　　Second, whether the lawyer has the ability to search for basic patents

　　As China's utility model and design patents currently adopt a preliminary review system, the actual patent authorization rate can reach 100%. Under this system, a lot of spam patents will be generated, and many patent owners intentionally abuse the patents and sue the so-called patent infringers. If the defendant encounters such lawsuits, the lawyer should know how to use the patent database to conduct basic patent search knowledge, including patent legal status search and patentability search. In particular, patent search, for the patent claims involved in the patent, the initial search for the creative, novelty of the patent, if there is damage to the patent comparative documents, should form a patent search report submitted to the court, persuaded the court ruled that the proceedings are suspended, Provide sufficient time for applying for a patent invalidity.

　　Third, will the lawyer use the relevant information of the State Intellectual Property Office website?

　　In the case of a patent litigation contracted by the author, as a trustee of the defendant, the author found through the relevant information on the website of the State Intellectual Property Office that the plaintiff had made a patent right evaluation report on the patent involved before the indictment, and the report was in the entire case. The plaintiff did not submit it as evidence. After discovering this information, the author had reason to believe that the evaluation report should be against the plaintiff. Therefore, he communicated in a timely manner with the court of acceptance and asked the other party to submit the evidence. Otherwise, according to the relevant provisions of the Rules of Evidence, the court should make a fact judgment against it. After the plaintiff refused to submit this patent evaluation report, fortunately, the public knows the technical defense, the court made a factual determination of the evidence to our extremely favorable fact.

　　Whether the lawyer has undertaken a patent invalidation application

　　As mentioned above, patent litigation cases, especially utility model and design cases, often encounter the defendant filed a patent invalidation application. The application is a case in process, and its acceptance unit is the Patent Reexamination Board of the State Intellectual Property Office. In the invalidation process, if the other party submits unfavorable evidence, then whether the right holder is capable of making amendments to the patent claim (merger, deletion, etc.), and this ability is not that of other professional lawyers. At this time, the right holder may say that the invalid application can be retained by another patent attorney, but if a case is represented by a patent litigation lawyer, whether it is from the perspective of the connection of the case or from the perspective of litigation costs, the scheme to be hired separately is not. For the best choice.

　　V. Others

　　In the patent litigation, the plaintiff who is the patent right holder will generally apply for a patent evaluation report to the State Intellectual Property Office before filing a lawsuit. If the result of the report is that the patent is not patentable, is this case impossible to proceed? Here, the author needs to remind right holders that, first of all, the patent evaluation report is not an effective legal document for the executive authorities. It can only be used as a reference for trials. Second, the results of the patent evaluation report may not always be normative, and many patent evaluations The reports all have certain tendencies. The correctness of the selection of the comparative documents largely determines the patent stability of a case.

　　The lawyer profession is becoming increasingly specialized. This is due to the specialization of the market. Securities lawyers with income of more than a few million years may not necessarily be the best lawyers for your case. Lawsuits such as warfare, “the right place and the right person” can win the case. Choosing the right patent litigation lawyer is at least on the "people".