[photopress:Netacflashdrive_1.jpg,full,alignright]A most unexpected, but perfectly proper, development. Netac, a manufacturer of computer flash memory products based in Shenzhen, has brought a patent suit against a New Jersey rival in a federal court in Texas, in what is believed to be the first time that a mainland Chinese company has sued an American one for patent infringement.
One patent that is held by Netac is the patent for a ‘Data exchange, storage method and device’ in China. The patent number is ZL02134847.2.
Tony Chen, a US-trained patent attorney in the Shanghai office of the US law firm, Jones Day, said, ‘This could be a harbinger of things to come.Chinese companies are treating intellectual property lawsuits as an effective competition tool in the marketplace.’
The increasing importance of intellectual property to Chinese companies was demonstrated earlier this month by figures from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), showing patent filings in China (half of them by Chinese) have increased sevenfold in the past 10 years.
Suing and getting sued for patent infringement in the US is very costly, but it can have benefits, says Tony Chen. Chinese companies are increasingly realizing ‘it may not be a bad thing to be a defendant in a lawsuit because we get free publicity’.
Source: Financial Times