The Beijing IP court issued a judgement on 25. December 2017 in a case concerning graphical user interface (GUIs). The dispute is between Qihu, the plaintiff and its competitor Jiamin.
Qihu holds a design patent entitled “computer with GUI”, the patent protection included a computer which displayed the GUIs. Qihu claimed that the Jianmin Optimization Expert product used a GUI that was similar to one protected by its patents. In that respect, Qihoo requested the court to order the cessation of the infringement and sought compensation of RMB 10 millions for the damage suffered. The Court decided in favor of Jianmin.
First, the court ruled that the protection scope of GUI designs only cover similar or identical products. It is said that the patent scope of “computer with GUI” is limited to the computer products, the accused infringing software is not a product in the same or similar category as computers. Therefore, Jianmin doesn’t fall within the patent scope, and there was no direct infringement.
With the respect of contributory infringement, the court said that a contributory infringement is constituted when it exists a direct infringement by users. However, in this case, users can only download the software to their computers and they don’t committed an act of manufacturing, selling, or offering for sale computers with the accused infringing software preinstalled. The court again rejected Qihu’s claim, because without a direct infringement by users, there is no contributory infringement.
The case between Qihu and Jianming is the first GUI patent infringement case brought before a Chinese court. GUIs is a user interface that includes graphical elements and allow an user to interact easily with the computer by clicking the icon or the graph in the interface.
Since 2014, graphical users interface are patentable in China by Notice 68 of the State Intellectual Property Office. The SIPO of China only accepts applications for GUI design in combination with a physical product, in this case, the GUI is included in a computer.
The court’s judgment provided clarification on the protection scope of a GUI design patent. However, the judgement appears too restricted to effectively protect GUIs. According to this judgment, a competitor can use a GUI similar to one’s covered by a patent if it does not provide the same product that incorporates the patented design. In the case of software, it is easy to avoid the infringing GUi design, if a third party only provides a software separate from a physical product.