After the first and second instance trial on patent right disputes between Emerson Electric (Zhuhai) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Emerson Zhuhai Company") and Shenzhen Aiar Electric Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shenzhen Aiar Company"), the Shenzhen Intermediate Court, the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme Court ruled the utility model patent with patent number ZL201020142264.8 belongs to the plaintiff Emerson Zhuhai Company, and the defendant Shenzhen Aiar Company to fully compensate the plaintiff Emerson Zhuhai Company for economic losses and reasonable expenses for safeguarding rights in the case, totaling RMB 1 million. 

Emerson Zhuhai Company, the plaintiff in the first instance of this case, belongs to the world-famous Emerson Electric Company of the United States, and its main business includes the production of thermal fuses. The patent "Thermal Fuse Stamping Device" involved in the case is a production tool used in the manufacturing process of thermal fuses. Long before the patent application involved (2010), the relevant companies in Emerson Group used the stamping device of the thermal fuse involved for a long time to produce thermal fuses, which were only used in factories within the Group without applying for patents. 

In November 2016, Shenzhen Aiar Company, the defendant in the first instance, complained to Guangdong Intellectual Property Office that the thermal fuse stamping device used by the plaintiff infringed its patent right involved, and asked the plaintiff to stop the infringement. At this time, the plaintiff learned that its technical achievements of the thermal fuse stamping device legally owned and used for a long time had been patented by the defendant in 2010. In order to deal with the defendant's patent infringement allegations and safeguard his legitimate rights and interests, the plaintiff filed a patent ownership dispute lawsuit against the patents involved in the case in Shenzhen Intermediate Court in December 2016, and claimed the economic losses and reasonable expenses for safeguarding rights, totaling one million yuan. 

During the trial of the case, the plaintiff proved the following facts by giving evidence: 

1) Long before the defendant's patent application date, the plaintiff's affiliated companies have developed and used the technical solutions involved in the production and operation activities for a long time; 

2) The inventor of the patent involved is a former employee of the plaintiff's affiliated company, and the legal representative of the defendant is a former senior executive of the plaintiff's affiliated company. Both of them have access to the patent technical scheme involved; The technical scheme is not independently developed by the defendant, but comes from the plaintiff's affiliated company. 

After comprehensive judgment, Shenzhen Intermediate Court recognized the above facts on the basis of the evidence submitted by the plaintiff, and confirmed that the patent ownership belongs to the plaintiff. The economic loss and reasonable expenses claimed by the plaintiff were fully supported. 

As rights confirmation cases, dispute on ownership generally do not deal with the plaintiff's claim for damages in the same case. But in the first instance procedure, Shenzhen Intermediate Court invoked the principle of good faith stipulated in Article 4 of General Principles of Civil Law, where participants in market activities are proposed to exercise their rights in good faith and prudently on the premise of observing social public interests and market order. Meanwhile, the legitimate interests of others should not be harmed. The court further invoked the tort liability stipulated in Article 6 of the Tort Liability Law, and considered that the defendant applied for a patent in his own name for the technical scheme belonging to the plaintiff, after that, the defendant filed an administrative complaint and infringement lawsuit with the plaintiff (in the course of litigation, the defendant sued the plaintiff for infringement of his patent right in Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court in August 2018 based on the patent involved, demanding that the plaintiff stop the infringement and compensate for economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling RMB 50 million). This action has subjective malice and constitutes infringement, so Shenzhen Intermediate Court fully supported the economic losses and reasonable expenses claimed by the plaintiff in its judgment. The court believes that the related ownership disputes and the defendant's malicious tort liability dealt with together is conducive to finding out the facts of the case, saving litigation resources and reducing the litigation burden of the parties. 

Normally, in judicial practice, the party suffering malicious litigation of intellectual property rights usually needs to sue in another case and claim damages, which caused extra burden to the obligee, who must spend extra time and cost to safeguard the rights. Considering the facts of this case, Shenzhen Intermediate Court made a breakthrough in supporting the plaintiff's claim for compensation for economic losses and reasonable expenses, which truly and timely maintained the plaintiff's legitimate rights and interests. This practice has also been recognized by the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme Court, thus providing a new way of thinking for the obligee to defend the rights.