*AI-generated translation, for reference only.

Recently, the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court issued a final judgment in a patent infringement dispute, clarifying that if a product manufacturer provides relevant bundled software to the purchaser as an accessory to the product being sold, and the purchaser uses the product and software in combination, the combined technical solution—since it is in fact subjectively known to and provided as a whole by the product manufacturer—may be treated as the alleged infringing technical solution.

A technology company in Hangzhou is the patent holder of an invention patent titled "Thermal Imaging Device and Thermal Imaging Method" (hereinafter referred to as the "patent-in-suit"). It alleged that a technology company in Shanghai had infringed the patent-in-suit by manufacturing, offering for sale, and selling the accused infringing products for the purpose of production and business operations. Therefore, it requested the court to order the Shanghai technology company to cease the infringement and compensate for economic losses of 2.5 million yuan and reasonable expenses incurred in enforcing the patent rights amounting to 202,750 yuan.

The patent in question provides a thermal imaging device and a thermal imaging capture method. During the formation of an infrared thermal image, it compares the captured infrared thermal image with a reference image of specified position, size, and shape. The user employs this reference image as a visual cue for capturing the thermal image of the subject, thereby reducing the technical requirements for the user and improving the quality and efficiency of the capture.The central issue in this case was whether the accused infringing technical solution possessed the technical features of the "reference image" and "constituent data related to the reference image" as defined in the claims. Following an on-site inspection, it was determined that the accused infringing product only possessed the aforementioned technical features of the "reference image" and "constituent data related to the reference image" after ledger information data generated by software provided by a certain technology company in Shanghai was imported into the accused infringing product via an SD card.Therefore, the court of first instance held that the technical features of the software did not constitute technical features inherent to the accused infringing product itself and did not form part of the accused infringing technical solution; consequently, the accused infringing technical solution did not fall within the scope of protection of the patent-in-suit. The first-instance judgment dismissed the claims of a certain technology company in Hangzhou. The Hangzhou-based technology company appealed the decision.

The Supreme People's Court held in the second-instance ruling: Regarding the determination of the alleged infringing technical solution—specifically, whether it includes the technical features of the accompanying software data provided by the product manufacturer—it is well known to those skilled in the art that, based on the same hardware foundation,products will possess different functions depending on the accompanying software. If the product manufacturer provides the accompanying software to the purchaser as an accessory to the product being sold, and the purchaser combines the product with the software for use, the combined technical solution is, in fact, one that the product manufacturer subjectively knew of and provided to the purchaser as a whole. Therefore, the technical solution formed by combining the technical features of the product itself with the technical features of the software may be regarded as the alleged infringing technical solution.In this case, the software and operating instructions provided by a certain technology company in Shanghai serve as a user guide for the accused infringing product and are also the necessary technical documents for implementing the functions described in the product's manual. Therefore, the functions realized by importing data processed by the software into the accused infringing product in accordance with the steps in the operating instructions should be understood as technical features included in the technical solution of the accused infringing product.Furthermore, the description of the patent-in-suit regarding the "storage unit"—which can be either the product's storage medium or another storage medium connected to the product via a wired or wireless connection—further clarifies that the "constituent data" described in the technical solution of the patent-in-suit includes data imported into the product via an external storage medium. It is evident, therefore, that data imported via an external storage medium falls within the scope of the "constituent data" defined by the claims of the patent-in-suit.Based on the on-site demonstrations conducted during both the first and second instance trials, after importing ledger information data created using software provided by a certain technology company in Shanghai into an SD card and inserting it into the accused infringing product, the accused infringing product possessed the technical features of the "reference image" and "reference image-related constituent data" of the patent in question, thereby falling within the scope of protection of the patent rights.Therefore, the second-instance court reversed the first-instance judgment and ordered the Shanghai-based technology company to cease infringement and compensate the Hangzhou-based technology company for economic losses of 600,000 yuan and reasonable expenses incurred in enforcing its rights amounting to 111,450 yuan.

When a product manufacturer provides the accompanying software to the purchaser as an accessory to the product, the technical solution involving the combined use of the product hardware and software is effectively determined by the manufacturer, and the manufacturer is subjectively aware of this.The second-instance judgment in this case clarifies that, under such circumstances, the technical solution formed by the combined use of the product hardware and accompanying software provided by the product manufacturer constitutes the alleged infringing technical solution. This helps accurately define the alleged infringing technical solution that combines hardware and software technical features, thereby effectively safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the patent holder.