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
This shows that China is definitely taking patent infringement seriously.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.
