On April 9, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court made a first-instance judgment on the dispute over infringement of design patent right by the plaintiff Pop Mart Cultural and Creative Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Pop Mart") vs. the defendant Suzhou Industrial Park Ruotai Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ruotai Technology"), rejecting all the claims of the plaintiff Pop Mart.

Blind box refers to a toy box in which consumers cannot know the specific product style in advance, and has random attributes. Only when the consumer opens it will he know what has been drawn. Uncertain stimulus will strengthen repeated decision-making, so it is currently a business model that has attracted widespread attention.

According to the plaintiff, as a well-known blind box brand company, it enjoys the design patent right for its core product "Molly" doll, with the application number of 201630170522.6. The plaintiff found that the defendant manufactured, promised to sell and sold "Chocat" series products without permission. The plaintiff believed that the "Chocat" series products manufactured, promised to be sold and sold by the defendant were similar to the plaintiff's patent composition and infringed the plaintiff's patent right for design. Therefore, the plaintiff appealed to the court, requesting the defendant to immediately stop the infringement, destroy the products accused of infringement and compensate the plaintiff for economic losses and reasonable expenses, totaling 10 million yuan.

Product of the plaintiff (Source: Flagship store of the plaintiff)

The defendant argued that the series of products accused of infringing "Chocat" did not fall within the scope of protection of the plaintiff's patent. After comparison, there are obvious differences between the products of the two parties. The accused infringing products have been sold for a short period of time, and in a small quantity with low profits or almost no profits, hence the defendant requested the court to reject all the plaintiff's claims.

Product of the defendant (Source: Shang intellectual property court)

The Shanghai Intellectual Property Court found through trial that, the main difference between the accused infringing product "Chocat " and the "Jasmine Molly" product of the plaintiff lies in facial features and hairstyle: the corner of the eye of the Chocat doll is sharp, while the eye of the Jasmine doll is relatively large and round, and the two products are also different in iris and pupil design in the rim of the eye, the outline method of the rim of the eye, the specific design of the upper eyelash and the lower eyelash, as well as the setting of the mole; the lips of the Chocat doll are slightly O-shaped, and the corners of the mouth are horizontal at both ends, while the lips of the Jasmine doll are closed, the upper lips are pursed outward, and the corners of the mouth on both sides sink. Although both products have neat bangs and Bob hair style, the bangs of Chocat doll have two bifurcations, and the end of the hair tip is vertical, while the bangs of Jasmine doll have no gaps, and the end of the hair tip is rolled up in layers.

According to the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court, although anthropomorphic shapes are generally adopted for doll toys, there are great differences in the overall figure proportion and shape, head shape and clothing design of dolls, which has left large room to play. The designs of facial features and expressions, especially the eyes and mouth, are more likely to have a significant impact on the overall shape and specific expressions of the face. Because there are great differences between the accused infringing products and the patents involved in the case in facial features, hairstyles and clothing, and the above differences will have a significant impact on the overall visual effect products of the two products, hence according to the overall observation, there are substantial differences in the overall visual effect between the appearance design of the accused infringing products and the patents involved. Generally speaking, the two products are neither identical nor similar to each other.

Therefore, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court held that the "Chocat" series of products did not constitute infringement of the design patent.