The Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court imposed penalties on the parties for obstructing the court's inquest and intentionally delaying the proof in a patent civil infringement case, with a total damage of 200,000 yuan, targeted to the parties and their legal representatives. Although the punished party won the case, he was still punished for the improper behaviors mentioned above.

In the case of Shenzhen Xinhui Electromechanical Equipment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Xinhui Company) and Dongguan Yicheng Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Yicheng Company) infringing the patent right of utility model, Yicheng Company sued and claimed that the winding machine equipment manufactured and sold by Xinhui Company infringed its patent right, demanding that Xinhui Company stop the infringement and compensate for the economic losses.

To find out the facts of the case, the judge of first instance went to the storage place of the alleged infringing equipment to conduct an on-site inspection. However, the legal representative of Xinhui Company refused to provide the equipment startup password, which caused the court of first instance to fail to investigate the technical scheme of the winding machine produced by Xinhui Company. The court of first instance also explicitly requested Xinhui Company to take the burden of proof on the operation and related technical characteristics of its winding machine, which was also refused by Xinhui Company. On this basis, the court of first instance decided that the technical scheme of the winding machine produced by Xinhui Company fell within the scope of protection of the patent right involved, and ruled that Xinhui Company shall stop infringement and compensate Yicheng Company for economic losses of 200,000 yuan.

Xinhui Company appealed against the ruling by submitting the operation video of the sued infringing equipment as new evidence in the second instance litigation process to demonstrate the technical characteristics of the sued infringing equipment, and Yicheng Company recognized the video content as valid evidence. On such ground, the Supreme People's Court re-determined the facts of the case and revised the judgment of the first instance.

Xinhui Company obstructed the court’s inquest for finding out the facts in the first instance, and did not submit the important evidences until the second instance (evidences that were already in its possession, and involved the basic facts of the case and were explicitly required to be submitted by the court of first instance), and failed to give a reasonable explanation for the deliberate delay of submission. The Article 65.2, Article 111.1.(5) and Article 111.2 of the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China have stipulated penalties such as fines for such acts that hinder civil litigation. In view of the behavior of Xinhui Company obstructing judicial staff from performing their duties, the company and its legal representative were fined 100,000 yuan and 50,000 yuan respectively, and Xinhui Company was fined 50,000 yuan for intentionally delaying of the proof. This strict punishment was imposed for failing to abide by the principle of good faith in litigation, abusing litigation rights, disrupting litigation order and wasting judicial resources.

Honesty and credit are important principles in civil litigation, which also run through the whole process of intellectual property civil litigation. In this case, the Supreme People's Court made a clear negative evaluation on the behavior of obstructing judicial staff from performing their duties and deliberately overdue proof by implementing fines, which is an important measure to promote the construction of an intellectual property civil litigation evidence system that encourages and guides the parties to actively give evidence and improve the quality and efficiency of intellectual property trials.