The ceramic industry's "heartache" patent maintenance task is difficult

Product patents have always been a pain in the heart of the ceramic industry. Product counterfeiting, pattern plagiarism, and marketing misconduct have plagued the development of the ceramic industry. Many excellent innovative products have been imitated by the industry, the profit of the products has dropped sharply, the life cycle of the products has been shortened rapidly, and the products have even withered and withdrawn from the market. The experience of excellent products such as Dongpeng's Golden Flower Beige, Oceano's Yuhua Stone, and Jianyi's Marble are typical examples that make people sad. Recently, Dongpeng travertine patent disputes and Eagle Ceramics reached a settlement agreement. This incident has caused industry professionals to pay attention to ceramic product patents again. In this special plan, an investigation will be launched on the patents of ceramic products, exploring how the current ceramic industry should take the road of product patent protection.

history

The first patent protection was launched in the 1990s

Since the early 1990s, the ceramic industry has entered the era of patent protection. In 1993, the national invention patent technology of cold isostatic pressing of Foshan Ceramic Research Institute under Guangdong Fotao Group suffered infringement. It is understood that the Foshan Ceramic Research Institute was a well-known ceramic industry technology research and development institution at the time, and it was a contributor to Foshan ceramic technology progress. The two technologies infringed were the “ceramic roller isostatic pressing mold” and the “ceramic roller pre-forming device” that have obtained national patents. It took the Institute of Ceramics 8 years and invested more than 13 million yuan in scientific research funds to develop it. The key technology for successfully adopting the cold isostatic pressing process to produce ceramic rollers was confirmed by the National Science and Technology Commission as a confidential technology at that time, and the confidentiality period was 15 years. The Buddha Pottery Research Institute sued Songgang Factory and Jinchang Factory in Nanhai City, Guangdong Province. The two factories stole the two confidential technologies and related business and technical secrets, and dumped their products with low prices and rebates, which had a greater impact on the institute's roller market. In the end, the largest intellectual property case in the ceramics industry was fought for more than three years. By June 1995, it finally ended in an out-of-court settlement.

policy

The country has issued many patent laws

At present, the domestic certification of product intellectual property rights has begun to take shape. The intellectual property rights of the ceramic industry are mainly divided into four categories in China, namely patents, trademarks, copyrights, and achievements. Each project has its corresponding strict laws and regulations, and every detail of ceramic business operations has laws to follow. It is understood that the "Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law of the People's Republic of China" (hereinafter referred to as the "Detailed Rules of the Patent Law") is currently the most systematic patent laws and regulations for the issue of patents in the ceramic industry. The “Detailed Rules of the Patent Law” was promulgated by Order No. 306 of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China on June 15, 2001; on December 28, 2002, the State Council made the first amendment to the Patent Law; and on January 9, 2010, the State Council The Patent Law was revised for the second time; in addition, regarding trademark protection and other issues, the Supreme People’s Court on the Trial of Civil Disputes Involving the Protection of Well-Known Trademarks was adopted at the 1467th meeting of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People’s Court on April 22, 2009. The Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in the Case (hereinafter referred to as the Interpretation) is the most comprehensive. It is understood that the Interpretation is based on the “Trademark Law of the People’s Republic of China”, the “Unfair Competition Law of the People’s Republic of The "Procedure Law" and other relevant legal provisions are formulated in accordance with the actual trial; the law on the appraisal of scientific and technological achievements is the oldest. The "Measures for the Appraisal of Scientific and Technological Achievements" was promulgated and implemented as early as October 26, 1994.

status quo

Taoqi encounters crazy counterfeiting

Since 2000, patent rights protection actions in the ceramic industry have never ceased. The protection of wood grain brick patents carried out by Shiwan Meitao Factory, to the patent protection case of Oceano Ceramics Yuhua Stone, and in 2004, Dongpeng Ceramics sued more than 10 companies in Foshan for the invention patent of "Ceramic Glass Ceramic Composite Plate Production Method" Ceramic enterprise infringement. Although there are more and more cases of rights protection by ceramic companies, the counterfeiting of products has not converged because of this, but has become more and more intense. In 1997, Dongpeng’s Golden Flower Beige caused "a piece of yellow" in the ceramic industry; in 2006, Oceano’s Pilates was wildly counterfeited, and Pilates even became the name of a brand under a private polishing factory; Jane launched in 2009 In less than 3 months, the marble has been "glazed all over the city". This makes innovative product companies not only fail to get the reward they deserve, but even suffer serious losses. According to the reporter's understanding, when Dongpeng Ceramics was developing travertine, it took nearly three years from the research and development of travertine to the best-selling in the market. Dongpeng Ceramics spent nearly three years and invested a huge amount of research and development funds and marketing expenses. According to informed sources, the current cost of travertine alone is as high as 12 million yuan for the preliminary research and development, but Dongpeng ceramics travertine has been launched less than half a year ago, and it has encountered large-scale counterfeiting in the industry, which has seriously affected Dongpeng travertine sales plan. The R&D investment cost of travertine has not been recovered, and the price of travertine has dropped rapidly, from the original average export price of 14 US dollars per square meter to 9 US dollars per square meter.

Foshan ceramics patented technology is low

It is understood that the Foshan ceramic sanitary ware industry now has an average of more than 1,000 patent applications per year. These patent projects include product design patents, product utility model patents, product invention innovations, etc. According to the Foshan Office of China Ceramic Industry Association Director Lan Weibing introduced that the total number of patents in Foshan's ceramic industry has reached more than 8,000. Although the number of patent projects applied for by Foshan Ceramics is considerable each year, the reporter found from the data that patent creation in the ceramic industry is still relatively low. Taking the number of ceramic patent applications of Foshan Ceramics published by an organization in 2006 as an example, the data shows that Foshan Ceramics has 87 invention and innovation patents, 180 utility model product patents, and 1076 design patents. According to industry sources, the appearance design of a product cannot be regarded as a patent at all, because many companies only make subtle adjustments to the product formula to change the color of the product, and this also applies for a patent for the product, so the appearance design does not have any Technical content. However, from the data point of view, most of the ceramic invention patents are based on design, accounting for 80% of the total number of invention patents. Therefore, the gold content of many so-called product patents is not very high.

abroad

Put an end to the shame of counterfeiting

Spain (Spanish decoration renderings) and Italy and other ceramic powerhouses attach great importance to product intellectual property rights and invention patents. It is understood that the ceramic companies in Spain and Italy are ashamed of counterfeiting, so they never counterfeit any products of their competitors, and all products will be launched on the market only after their own research and development. According to industry insiders, in Italy, the design, development and production companies are quite mature, and the product patent laws are very complete. They are all built on the same legal market platform, they are protected from each other, and the enterprises have strong self-discipline capabilities. Only in such a healthy environment can Italy lead the trend in world ceramic design. In addition, foreign ceramic companies are also very planned to apply for patent protection. Lan Weibing said that it takes at least one year for patents to be approved internationally, so many foreign ceramic companies will submit their new products one year in advance. Patent applications. Therefore, during the same period when new products are on the market, new products have been protected by patent laws. Unlike our country, patented products have already been imitated when the patent application is approved.

After the compilation

my country’s ceramic industry has a long way to go to patent. The chaotic competition in the ceramic industry, the imperfect laws and regulations, and the backward consciousness of ceramic enterprises are the main obstacles hindering the protection of intellectual property rights in my country’s ceramic industry. To solve these problems, the key is to need the government and industry associations to play the role of guides, formulate relevant laws and regulations to regulate the behavior of ceramic companies, improve the company's awareness of product patent protection, and restore a healthy and reasonable development environment for the industry.