Under the background of "double carbon" policy, energy storage was once considered to be a highly deterministic industry, and energy storage enterprises flocked to it. However, in recent years, the phenomenon of patent infringement and talent poaching in the field of energy storage is common.
On November 28, China Trial Open Network broadcast the trial of Haichen Energy Storage and Ningde Times'non-competition disputes live. The court ruled that Wu Zuyu, the founder of Haichen Energy Storage, violated the non-competition agreement and poached high-tech talents from Ningde Times.
Ningde Times subsequently responded that Wu Zuyu did violate the non-competition agreement. As early as September this year, the Arbitration Commission has ruled that Wu Zuyu should pay 1 million yuan liquidated damages to Ningde Times . Wu Zuyu approved the award of the Arbitration Commission and paid a penalty of 1 million yuan to Ningde Times through his wife (Lin Xiuhua, the former legal representative of Haichen Energy Storage) on September 23.
It is noteworthy that Zhang Min, another party involved in this case, is also a former senior battery system engineer of Ningde Times. After leaving Ningde Times, he had been in and out of Haichen Energy Storage Office for many times during his tenure at Xiamen Rare Earth Materials Research Institute, and wore Haichen Energy Storage Card. With the rapid development of
business, Ning Wang feels the crisis? Founded on December 27, 2019, the company is mainly engaged in the research and development, production and sales of lithium battery core materials, lithium iron phosphate energy storage batteries and systems. At present, the company has developed square batteries (50Ah/280Ah/300Ah/320Ah), battery modules, battery clusters, energy storage cabinets and other energy storage products.
In fact, Wu Zuyu, a former middle-level manager in the Ningde era, has worked in the Ningde era for no less than six years. During this period, Wu Zuyu led the application for 67 patents, involving pole pieces and batteries in the field of energy storage. In 2019, Wu Zuyu, with more than six technical backbones , left collectively and founded Haichen Energy Storage.
In just three years, the scale of Haichen Energy Storage Team has expanded rapidly to more than 7000 people , and the ranking of the industry has risen rapidly, and remarkable achievements have been made. InfoLink Global Lithium Battery Supply Chain Database pointed out that in the first half of 2023, Haichen's total shipments of energy storage batteries ranked TOP5 , and in the first three quarters of this year, the shipment scale was above 8 GWh, maintaining the fifth place.
It is worth mentioning that its big reserve ranking has leaped to the fourth place . With the previous rounds of financing, the market value of Haichen Energy Storage has exceeded 30 billion yuan , and the gap between Haichen Energy Storage and the industry giants has been narrowing.
However, unlike the rapid growth of "rising stars", the market share of Ningde Times, as the first brother in the industry, has declined. According to Infolink data, the market share of Ningde Times in the field of energy storage has dropped from 41% last year to 33% in the first half of 2023.
"Weapons" or "protection", Ningwang's externalized anxiety
or the impact of the decline in market share, Ningde era can not hide "anxiety", holding the law of competition, holding high the patent stick, fighting on all sides.
Digital New Energy DataBM.
years ago, said that at the gate of Ningde City Court, Sued former employees can be seen almost every day, and almost everyone is burdened with millions of competitive lawsuits.
Although it is legal for employees who leave their jobs to pay liquidated damages in violation of the competition agreement. However, it is reported that the competition agreement in the Ningde era is extremely harsh and covers a wide range of areas. Without violating the competition agreement, employees can only choose to find another job. With the current speed of renewal in the energy storage industry, this time is enough to eliminate the technical advantages of employees. At the same time, the difference between thousands of competitive compensation and one million compensation for breach of the competitive agreement is too large, which is inevitably controversial. They are not polite
to their employees who leave their jobs, but to other competitive enterprises, Ningde Times is a heavy blow.
Digital New Energy DataBM.
In 2019, Tafel New Energy and Ningde Times were involved in a patent dispute over an "explosion-proof device". In order to obtain evidence of Tafel's infringement facts, Ningde Times spent more than 500,000 yuan and persisted in consuming for two years. Finally, in June 2021, Tafel was sentenced to pay more than 23 million yuan in compensation to Ningde Times in the first instance. In July
2021, Ningde Times formally sued China Innovation Airlines for patent infringement, demanding compensation of 185 million yuan and 3 million yuan for the cost of stopping infringement in Ningde Times. The two sides fought a year-long lawsuit over the patent issue. A year later, due to the huge value of the products involved in the lawsuit, Ningde Times raised the claim amount to 5.
It was not until the end of November 2022 that the patent war came to a stage result. According to the judgment, China Innovation Airlines should immediately stop selling products "current collection components and batteries" that infringe the patent rights of Ningde Times invention from the effective date of the judgment.In February
2022, Ningde Times took Honeycomb Energy to court on the grounds of "unfair competition", and finally Honeycomb Energy and Ningde Times reached a settlement of 5 million yuan and shook hands. In addition, each of the nine former employees who left their jobs paid one million yuan in compensation, and Ningde Times made a steady profit. In July
2022, Zhuhai Guanyu announced that it had received a patent infringement judgment and was awarded 4544 in Ningde Times .
Now it seems that patent litigation and competition agreement have gradually become the "sharp weapon" of the leader.
However, it should be noted that the competition agreement or patent protection is essentially a means for the state to protect innovation. The practice of enterprises using legal means to safeguard their rights and interests is impeccable. But if "protection" is regarded as the private "weapon" of enterprises, standing at the high point of the industry and constantly "sniping" the latecomers, it is no wonder that the outside world has to say that "the world has been suffering for a long time".
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