Patent Lawsuit Rejected, Ningde Times "Lost"

The "overbearing" King Ning seems to have fallen into the dilemma of losing both fame and fortune recently. On the evening of

December 15, China Chuangxin Airlines announced that it had received two Civil Rulings from the Supreme People's Court on December 14, revoking the civil judgments of Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court on the two patents of "positive pole and battery" and "lithium-ion battery". The prosecution of Ningde Times was rejected, and both rulings were final .

This means that the two patents of "positive pole piece and battery" and "lithium-ion battery" in Ningde era were declared invalid .

Since July 2021, Ningde Times has sued AVIC New Energy for patent infringement, involving six patents, including positive pole pieces and batteries, explosion-proof devices, current collector components and batteries, lithium-ion batteries, power battery top cover structure and power batteries.

During this period, the amount of litigation has been rising, with the first five lawsuits rising from 185 million to 518 million , and the sixth patent being claimed 130 million. The six patents involved a total of 648 million yuan in compensation . Among them, the claim amount of two patent infringements of "positive pole piece and battery" and "lithium ion battery" is 108 million yuan .

However, in response to the first five items, China Innovation Airlines filed a "patent invalidation" request with the State Intellectual Property Office.

Judging from the final results of the confrontation, one of the first five patent litigation cases involved was partially valid by the State Intellectual Property Office, two were invalid, and two have not yet been adjudicated in the first instance.

The two companies have not only patent disputes, but also competition disputes. In March

2023, China Chuangxin Airlines was found by the court to have violated the unfair competition law and awarded 3.7 million yuan in compensation to Ningde Times for digging technicians and business backbone through a third party. The competitive agreement

of Ningde Times has recently become a hot topic of Internet attention again.

Recently, a competition agreement for employees in Ningde Times has attracted a lot of attention on the Internet. Among the employee competition agreements exposed on the Internet, 50 enterprises were included in the list of non-competition enterprises, including BYD, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Great Wall Automobile and other well-known enterprises. However, according to people familiar with the situation, the number of non-compete enterprises on the list has increased to 100 this year.

According to the exposed competition agreement, the liquidated damages are 5 times or 1 million yuan of the total pre-tax income in the 12 months before leaving office, whichever is higher. That is to say, once they leave their jobs, they will be claimed for non-competition agreements, starting at least 1 million. Wu Zuyu , the founder

of Haichen Energy Storage, is an example.

On November 28, China Trial Open Network publicized a non-competition dispute between Haichen Energy Storage and Ningde Times. The trial showed that Wu Zuyu, the founder of Haichen Energy Storage, violated the competition agreement and poached talents from Ningde Times. The final result of this case is that Wu Zuyu paid 1 million yuan liquidated damages to Ningde Times.

In addition, according to industry sources, the Ministry of Justice of Ningde Times has a special person to do the investigation of non-competition, and even has indicators. The means of investigation are also exhaustive. "Send some express delivery to Youshang Company to see if it has been signed, and if it has been signed, there will be a special person to take photos" as evidence to submit, and even hired a private detective to investigate the matter.

This practice, in terms of market evaluation, is to "seal employees in the Ningde era". For the employees of Ningde Times, they are faced with a choice of two choices: career change or competitive compensation for millions of starting jobs.

But Ning Wang's overbearing approach resulted in the loss of his employer's brand image. "For a period of time, their (Ningde Times) offer was rejected by 80%," an industry insider said.