A Beijing court has ordered two Chinese kettle manufacturers to pay US$1.3 million (RMB9.1 million) in damages to a UK company over patent infringements, the South China Morning Post reported. The No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court ruled that Zhejiang Jiatai Electrical Appliance Manufacture and Leqing FaDa Electrical Appliance had sold electric kettle controls based on technology developed by Strix, a British company. Describing the company’s year-long battle in China’s courts as a landmark case, Strix chief executive Paul Hussey said that the decision of the court would encourage further investment in China by showing that the courts were willing to protect intellectual property rights. "The case is only one piece of a very large jigsaw. It does good for everyone – our company, Chinese inventors, consumers and even the global community," he said. However, the ruling comes after search engines Baidu and Sohu won a case last week against foreign IP holders who argued that their targeted searches for pirated music and movies were built in order to facilitate copyright infringement.