Uncovering the Five Great Wall Tigers on the Way of Patent Rights Protection in Ceramic Industry

The ceramics industry’s struggle for patent rights has been going on for 18 years, and some ceramic companies with product innovation are persistently fighting for the honor of the product, but more companies have expanded their team of counterfeiting plagiarism. The forces tilted. Coupled with imperfections in laws and regulations, lack of patent information in the ceramics industry, and weaknesses in the patent awareness of ceramic companies, the ceramic industry’s patent rights are thorny. At present, the fruits of the victory in the patent rights defense war are still far from attainable, and the road to rights protection is still a lot of problems. Jiuzheng Building Materials Co., Ltd. thinks, “The ** has not yet succeeded and the comrades still need to work hard”. Let’s take a look at the rights protection of the ceramic industry. Five stumbling blocks.

“Lee” is the prevailing plagiarism in the ceramic industry. At present, ceramic enterprises are not very aware of product patents. This is mainly reflected in two aspects. First, many ceramic companies crazy imitate. According to industry figures, after a ceramic company launches a new product, it usually takes no more than two months. You can see exactly the same products in other ceramic companies' showrooms. Ceramic companies through such imitation can reduce the research and development costs of new products, so that counterfeit products are more cost-effective, the price in the end market is more competitive than "genuine". It is understood that many ceramic companies will immediately use some relationships and even spend money on the end market to buy back prototypes for product models when they know that new products will be launched. Some companies will also pay high salaries to solicit technical personnel who have product secrets. Under the banner, this series of unhealthy behaviors has become the unspoken rules of the ceramic industry.

Second, some product innovation companies do not take the initiative to oppose other companies to imitate products, because the ceramic industry has always been concerned about the low level of the industry, some really have innovative value and technological content of products is not easy to be known. The industry's swarm of imitating the listing behavior can play a certain role in the promotion of the product. Industry professionals admit that at present, there is very little that a single ceramics company can promote a product, and they all use the industry's large-scale listing wave to stir the product. Therefore, these product innovation companies also want to use the power of the industry. Promote the speed of product launch. A senior industry official pointed out that when the products are widely recognized, these product innovation companies began to want to enjoy their own, before they go to court with other ceramic companies, so that the behavior of bridge drawing and ceramic companies crazy imitation of the same behavior Not advisable.

Professional institutions lack the difficulties in protecting rights of ceramics. It is understood that intellectual property institutions are important social forces for realizing the protection and management of intellectual property rights of ceramic enterprises and the rational flow and diffusion of intellectual property rights. Intellectual property intermediary agencies can provide intellectual property companies with specific issues and related intellectual property rights. Information services, especially through the provision of evaluation and trading platforms for intellectual property rights, enable intellectual property rights to flow in an open, fair, and just trading environment in order to realize its commercial value and social value. This can enable many ceramic companies to pass intellectual property rights. The organization's professional capabilities and comprehensive services to deal with product patent issues. However, in the ceramics industry, it is difficult for us to look for the intermediary organizations for product intellectual property and patent applications. This is no help for ceramic companies that lack product patent expertise.

It is understood that the current functions of patent inquiries and applications fall more on the ceramic industry associations. According to Lan Weibing, director of the China Ceramic Industry Association’s Foshan office, “I have already done a lot of services for many companies to apply for product patents to help them better realize the value of the products.” But the industry association itself has other More work to follow, this will undoubtedly increase the workload of industry associations, and the quality of patent services naturally cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, the ceramic industry urgently needs an intermediary agency for product patents to provide professional services for more ceramic products and patents. It will also raise awareness of product patents in the ceramic industry.

Inadequate laws and regulations to allow counterfeit products to find a loophole Although product intellectual property and patent law has been promulgated for many years, but the current laws and regulations in the implementation of certain defects, resulting in ceramic companies, the illegal cost is not high. The reporter reviewed related product patent laws and regulations and found that Article 60 of the “Patent Law” of China stipulates: “The amount of compensation for infringement of a patent right shall be determined according to the loss suffered by the right holder due to infringement or the benefit obtained by the infringer from infringement; If the loss of a person or the benefit obtained by the infringer is difficult to determine, it shall be reasonably determined with reference to the multiple of the royalty of the patent.” Therefore, if a counterfeit ceramics company has been infringed by a court judgment, the patentee shall be required to compensate the lost sales profits and Infringer's profits from selling products in violation. However, it is relatively difficult for ceramic companies to provide truthful accounting books. This adds more trouble to subsequent compensation matters and reduces the operability of the correct amount of compensation. Many ceramic companies were sentenced to lose the lawsuit because of infringement, but the amount of compensation is very small, and it may be only tens of thousands of dollars. This is a real pay-off compared to the R&D cost of product developers investing tens of millions.

The special nature of ceramics impedes the composition of patented ceramic products. Ceramic products are mainly composed of sand and color glazes. The appearance and performance of the products are modulated by different formulations. However, as long as each company makes a slight adjustment to the product formula, the color of the product will change, which also makes it difficult to determine the product's patent. Luo Xiaowen, general manager of the Karma ceramics brand, said that ceramic companies will make slight improvements when counterfeiting new products. The color, color, texture and genuine goods of the products are all different. Therefore, many companies use this as an excuse to evade legal responsibility. . “Like cooking, everyone can fry the pan, but everyone's control of ingredients and time is not the same in the process of frying. It may not be the same as the taste of frying. However, the style has been fried.” Luo Xiaowen That is to say.

High cost of rights protection After a successful application for a company with great pressure, it is necessary to pay a certain patent fee to protect the patent from infringement. According to the introduction of the Blue Guards, according to different patent projects, the fees for patents vary, including 6,000 yuan for invention patents, 4,500 yuan for utility models, and 2,500 yuan for appearances, and this is only the first time that patents are applied. Each year also needs to charge an annual fee ranging from several hundred to several thousand dollars, and the annual fee will increase year by year. Taking the product appearance patent as an example, the annual fee for the first three years is 300 yuan per year, rising from the fourth year to 500 yuan per year. If ceramic companies have a relatively large number of patents, the annual cost for maintaining patents is not low. For example, Xinzhongyuan Ceramics has over 1,000 patents for products, and then the cost of the new ZhongYuan Ceramics' annual use in patent maintenance needs to exceed RMB 1 million. The maintenance cost is too high, and the procedures are cumbersome, making many companies daunted.

Conclusion Jiuzheng Building Materials Co., Ltd. thinks that despite the difficulties in the patent protection of ceramic products, although some ceramic companies have obtained certain benefits in a chaotic industry environment, in the long run, the crazy plagiarism of ceramic products will only enable ceramic innovation capabilities. With further declines, the ceramics industry has fallen into a more fierce price war and the ultimate victim is ceramic companies themselves. Therefore, ceramic companies need to reposition themselves, maintain the authority of product patents, and jointly create a healthy industry development environment.