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Schneider loses China patent case |
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Written by Felix Da Silva (fdasilva@bitnip.com)
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Thursday, 04 October 2007 |
 France's Schneider Electric lost a patent infringement lawsuit in China on Saturday and was ordered to pay 335 million yuan ($44.7 million) in damages, the official Xinhua news agency said. The amount of compensation is believed to be the highest in China in an
intellectual property rights case.
According to Reuters, in a Saturday ruling, the Wenzhou intermediate court in Zhejiang province
ordered Schneider Electric to pay 330 million yuan in compensation to the Chint
Group for patent infringement of its low-voltage elecrtical equipment, the
Beijing News reported.
Schneider was found guilty of violating patents of five models of Chint
equipment, in which it earned 883.6 million yuan in revenues from the production
and sales of the machinery from August 2004 to July 2006, the paper said.
The damages, corresponding to the profit which Schneider was estimated to have
earned by selling the products.
Guy Dufraisse, director of China operations for Schneider Electric told AFP
We absolutely disagree with this decision, it is absolutely unreasonable. Schneider Electric is a world leader in this technology, we will appeal this
decision immediately to the Zhejiang high court. This shows that China is definitely taking patent infringement seriously.
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