Jiabao Children's Products Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jiabao Company") is the owner of the invention patent of "Safety Lock Device for Children's Game Fence". It believes that the products delivered by Jieshi Import & Export Co., Ltd., and produced and sold by Tengyu Auto Parts Co., Ltd. and Bona Auto Parts Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jieshi Company", "Tengyu Company" and "Bona Company", collectively referred to as "Three Companies") infringe its invention patent right. Therefore, Jiabao Company sued the three companies to Ningbo Intermediate Court and applied for property preservation, demanding that the three companies shall compensate for reasonable expenses of 2 million yuan. Ningbo Customs detained 413 sets of products according to the application of Jiabao Company, and Jieshi Company paid counter-guarantee of 123,719 yuan to Ningbo Customs. The court of first instance also froze the bank accounts of the three companies, totaling 2 million yuan. 

After trial, the court of first instance found that the three companies did not infringe the patent right of Jiabao Company involved in the case, and rejected all the claims. Jiabao Company refused to accept the ruling and appealed to the Supreme People's Court. 

Subsequently, the court of first instance made a ruling to continue to freeze 2 million yuan of the three companies and seal up other equivalent property. After trial, the Supreme People's Court once again found that the three companies did not constitute infringement, hence rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment. 

The three companies then sued Jiabao Company to Ningbo Intermediate Court on the grounds that it made mistakes in applying for detention and property preservation, and demanded that the defendant shall compensate for economic losses for the frozen funds totaling 150,382.89 yuan. According to the court of first instance, the focus of the dispute in this case is whether the defendant's behavior of applying to the customs for intellectual property protection to detain goods and applying to the court for property preservation in the previous case is at fault and whether the defendant should bear responsibility. 

Whether the application is wrong or not should be comprehensively judged from the following aspects: whether the applicant has fulfilled the necessary and reasonable duty of care for the rationality of his claim, whether the applicant's claim is supported by the court, whether the amount of property preservation applied for exceeds the scope of the claim, and whether the measures for property preservation applied for are appropriate. 

Whether the applicant's claim is supported or not cannot be used as the only criterion to judge whether there is an error in applying for property preservation. In this case, it is difficult to find that the defendant's application involved in the case is wrong, so there is no need for the defendant to bear the liability for compensation, and the claims of the three companies are rejected. 

The three companies refused to accept the ruling and appealed to the Zhejiang Higher People's Court. The court of second instance held that, in order to judge whether the defendant was at fault, there is the need to examine whether the defendant had fulfilled his reasonable duty of care according to the specific circumstances of the case. In particular, one should properly balance the interests of the applicant and the respondent, and should not set too high a duty of care for the applicant, which makes him afraid to apply for the above measures to safeguard his legitimate rights and interests, nor let the applicant apply at will or even abuse the above measures to harm the interests of the respondent. 

The greater the possible impact on the interests of the respondent, the higher the duty of care of the applicant in the application process, and the more prudent the application behavior should be. In addition, in patent infringement disputes, the factors to judge whether the applicant of property preservation or customs protection measures has fulfilled the duty of reasonable care include: the stability of the patent right itself, whether the amount of property applied for preservation or the scope of goods applied for detention is reasonable, and whether the specific measures applied for preservation are appropriate. 

In this case, the patent rights enjoyed by Jiabao Company has strong stability, and the object scope and specific measures of its application for relevant preservation are not obviously improper, and the frozen amount does not exceed the scope of its claims; the detention was removed after the three companies settled the counter-guarantee, leaving a limited impact; although the amount of products detained by the customs is far less than 2 million yuan, Jiabao Company claimed in this case that the alleged infringement lasted for a long time and the sales volume was large, so it was not improper to claim compensation of 2 million yuan. As for the three companies' claim that Jiabao Company failed to apply to the court of first instance for cancellation of preservation in time after the first-instance judgment, Jiabao Company appealed against the first-instance judgment, and it was not improper to apply for renewal of insurance before the second-instance judgment was made. Bona Company and Tengyu Company are actually located in the same location of business, and there is the possibility of joint infringement. It is not improper to list them as co-defendants to apply for preservation. 

To sum up, in the case of limited impact of property preservation and customs protection measures, it is impossible to infer that the applicant has tort fault only on the grounds that the applicant generally knows that his behavior may cause damage to the other party at the time of application, and it is difficult to prove that the applicant is at fault with documented evidence, so there is no need to bear the liability for damages. On such ground, the court reject the appeal and uphold the original judgment.