In December 2021, Ningbo Intermediate Court made the ruling on two patent infringement cases of AUX Air Conditioning Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "AUX Company") against GREE Electric Appliance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "GREE Company"), confirmed the infringement act of the defendant and ordered compensation of 96 million yuan and 70.6 million yuan respectively, totaling more than 160 million yuan. 

In January 2019, AUX Company sued GREE Company for infringing two of its patents. AUX Company was the patentee of the invention patent named "Compressor" (Patent No.: ZL00811303.3), the application date was August 11, 2000, and the granting date was September 29, 2004. The patent right is still valid, and Toshiba Carrier Co., Ltd., as the prior obligee, has promised to hand over the right of litigation of infringement to the plaintiff. After investigation, the plaintiff found that the products produced by GREE Company fell within the scope of protection of the plaintiff's patent claims. 

The two cases have gone through jurisdiction objection and appeal, judicial authentication and invalidation, etc. (GREE filed a request for invalidation again on September 8, 2020 after withdrawing the invalidation application, and CNIPA made a decision on September 2, 2021 to declare the invention patent right ZL00811303.3 partially invalid: the technical solutions of claim 3 and claim 10 which cites claim 3 are invalid; claims 1-2 remain valid). After many court sessions, Ningbo Intermediate Court made the following judgments: 

In two patent infringement litigation cases, the alleged infringing products fall within the scope of protection of claims 1 and 10 of the patents involved. The defendant GREE’s prior art defense request was not established, and GREE was sentenced to compensate AUX for economic losses and reasonable expenses to stop infringement, totaling 160 million yuan.