Claim construction where multiple objects of the invention coexist

[Key points of the judgment]

The object of the invention plays an important role in claim construction, and in construing a claim the relationship between the object of the invention and the claim should be taken into account. Where there are multiple objects of the invention, it is not necessary for every claim to achieve all of the objects at the same time; if a claim is capable of achieving one of those objects and does not expressly define the technical features for achieving the other objects, it is inappropriate to introduce, on the ground that the other objects must also be achieved, technical features from the description and drawings relating to the achievement of those other objects so as to construe the claim narrowly.

[Keywords]

Civil　Infringement of a utility model patent right　Claim construction　Multiple objects of the invention

[Basic facts of the case]

Company Ku alleged: it is the patentee of a utility model patent with patent number 20142040****.5 entitled "An electrical connector for a mobile terminal accessory and a mobile terminal accessory having such an electrical connector" (hereinafter "the patent at issue"). Company Tu manufactured, sold and offered to sell "battery case" products; Company Pai and Company Lan, operators of online shops, also sold and offered to sell the "battery case" products at issue. The models of the "battery case" products at issue are S1, S5, S6, S7, S10, S10pro and S11. Of these, models S7 and S11 embody the same technical solution; models S1 and S6 embody the same technical solution; and models S5, S10 and S10pro embody the same technical solution. Company Ku contended that the products at issue of all models fall within the scope of protection of claims 1-3, 7, 12 and 13 of the patent at issue. Company Ku considered that Company Tu, Company Pai and Company Lan, without authorisation and for profit, manufactured, sold and offered to sell products falling within the scope of protection of the patent right at issue, constituting joint infringement, and should cease the infringement and jointly compensate economic losses of RMB 2.6 million and reasonable enforcement expenses of RMB 100,000.

Company Tu argued: (1) the technical solutions adopted by the accused products do not fall within the scope of protection of the patent right at issue; (2) the invalidation decisions concerning the patent at issue contain mutually contradictory and unreasonable understandings of the claims, and Company Tu had filed a request for invalidation and requested the court to suspend the proceedings; (3) the claims of the patent at issue are unclear and the context of the description cannot clearly explain them, making it impossible to determine the scope of protection of the claims; (4) the products at issue were not manufactured by Company Tu, which is merely the brand owner, and Company Ku's allegation that Company Tu manufactured infringing products is insufficiently supported by evidence and contrary to the facts; (5) even if the court finds infringement, the amount claimed by Company Ku is manifestly excessive.

Company Pai argued: it agreed with the defence submissions of Company Tu.

Company Lan argued: it agreed with the defence submissions of Company Tu, and Company Ku had no evidence to show that Company Lan participated in selling or offering to sell.

Claims 1-3, 7, 12 and 13 of the patent at issue read: "1. An electrical connector for a mobile terminal accessory, characterised by comprising: a plug having an insertion portion and a first pin portion, the insertion portion having a plurality of electrical contacts, the first pin portion having a plurality of pins electrically connected to the electrical contacts respectively, the pins being led out from the end of the insertion portion and extending a first distance in the vertical direction and then extending a second distance in the horizontal direction towards the front end of the insertion portion; and a socket having a receiving portion and a second pin portion, the receiving portion having a plurality of electrical contacts, the second pin portion having a plurality of pins electrically connected to the electrical contacts respectively, the pins being led out from the end of the receiving portion and extending a third distance in the horizontal direction.

2. The electrical connector according to claim 1, characterised in that the insertion direction of the plug and the receiving direction of the socket are parallel to each other.

3. The electrical connector according to claim 1, characterised in that the first distance matches the distance from the lower edge of the interface of the mobile terminal corresponding to the plug to the back of the mobile terminal.

7. The electrical connector according to claim 1 or 2, characterised in that the portion of the pins of the first pin portion that extends in the vertical direction after being led out from the end of the insertion portion lies in the same plane as the outer side surface of the receiving portion of the socket.

12. A mobile terminal accessory, characterised by comprising: a housing having a base plate and side plates, the side plates being arranged around the base plate and enclosing, together with the base plate, a receiving groove; an electrical connector arranged on the side plate, comprising: a plug having an insertion portion and a first pin portion, the insertion portion having a plurality of electrical contacts, the first pin portion having a plurality of pins electrically connected to the electrical contacts respectively, the pins being led out from the end of the insertion portion and extending a first distance in the vertical direction and then extending a second distance in the horizontal direction towards the front end of the insertion portion; and a socket having a receiving portion and a second pin portion, the receiving portion having a plurality of electrical contacts, the second pin portion having a plurality of pins electrically connected to the electrical contacts respectively, the pins being led out from the end of the receiving portion and extending a third distance in the horizontal direction; and a circuit board arranged in or on the base plate of the housing and electrically connected to the pins of the first pin portion and the pins of the second pin portion respectively.

13. The mobile terminal accessory according to claim 12, characterised by further comprising: an expansion device electrically connected to the circuit board."

Paragraph [0006] of the description of the patent at issue records: in existing electrical connectors, the plug and the socket are arranged on opposite sides of the circuit board inside the mobile terminal accessory, so that the plug, the circuit board and the socket form a sandwich structure within the housing, making it impossible to reduce the thickness of the mobile terminal accessory and thus giving the entire mobile terminal a considerable thickness.

The Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court held that the products of models S1, S5, S6, S7 and S11 belong to the "sandwich" structure expressly identified in the description of the patent at issue, that this technical means is clearly different from claims 1 and 12, that it does not conform to the object of the invention, and that it should therefore be excluded from the scope of protection of claims 1 and 12. Only in the products of models S10 and S10pro is the circuit board arranged at the end of the socket, and those products possess all the technical features of the claims asserted by Company Ku and fall within the scope of protection of the patent right at issue. Accordingly, on 28 March 2022 it rendered civil judgment (2020) Yue 73 Zhi Min Chu No. 1025: (1) Company Tu shall immediately cease manufacturing and selling products infringing the patent right at issue from the date on which this judgment takes legal effect; (2) Company Pai and Company Lan shall immediately cease selling and offering to sell products infringing the patent right at issue from the date on which this judgment takes legal effect; (3) Company Tu shall, within ten days from the date on which this judgment takes legal effect, compensate Company Ku for economic losses of RMB 300,000 and reasonable enforcement expenses of RMB 40,000; (4) Company Pai shall, within ten days from the date on which this judgment takes legal effect, compensate Company Ku for economic losses of RMB 50,000 and reasonable enforcement expenses of RMB 10,000; (5) Company Lan shall, within ten days from the date on which this judgment takes legal effect, compensate Company Ku for economic losses of RMB 50,000 and reasonable enforcement expenses of RMB 10,000; (6) the other claims of Company Ku are dismissed. Dissatisfied, Company Ku appealed. On 27 June 2024 the Supreme People's Court rendered civil judgment (2022) Zui Gao Fa Zhi Min Zhong No. 1318: (1) items 1 and 2 of the first-instance judgment are upheld; (2) item 6 of the first-instance judgment is revoked; (3) items 3, 4 and 5 of the first-instance judgment are amended to read "Company Tu shall, within ten days from the date on which this judgment takes effect, compensate Company Ku for economic losses of RMB 2.6 million; Company Pai shall bear joint and several liability for that amount of compensation up to RMB 200,000; Company Lan shall bear joint and several liability for that amount of compensation up to RMB 400,000"; (4) Company Tu, Company Pai and Company Lan shall, within ten days from the date on which this judgment takes effect, jointly compensate Company Ku for reasonable expenses of RMB 100,000; (5) the other claims of Company Ku are dismissed; (6) the appeal of Company Tu is dismissed.

[Reasoning of the judgment]

The effective judgment of the court held: First, pursuant to Article 59, paragraph 1 of the Patent Law, the claims are the basis for defining the scope of protection of a patent right; the description and drawings may be used to interpret the relevant content of the claims, and their interpretive function lies in helping a person of ordinary skill in the art accurately understand the content of the claims, but they cannot replace the status and function of the claims in defining the scope of protection of the patent right. When the description and drawings are used to interpret the claims, since the embodiments are only illustrations of the invention, in principle the scope of protection of the patent right should not be limited by the illustrative descriptions in the description and drawings. Second, when the description and drawings are used to interpret the claims, the object of the invention described in the description plays an important role in the interpretation of the claims, but the relationship between the object of the invention and the claims should be taken into account. Where there are multiple objects of the invention, it is not necessary for every claim to achieve all of the objects at the same time; if a claim is capable of achieving one of those objects and does not expressly define the technical features for achieving the other objects, it is inappropriate to introduce, on the ground of achieving the other objects, technical features from the description and drawings relating to the achievement of those other objects so as to construe the claim narrowly.

In this case, the content recorded in claims 1 and 12 of the patent at issue is clear and definite in meaning and does not define the specific positions at which the circuit board, plug and socket are arranged. Upon comparison, the accused products of models S1, S6, S7 and S11 possess all the technical features recorded in claims 1 and 12 of the patent at issue, and according to the all-elements rule of patent infringement determination, those four products fall within the scope of protection of claims 1 and 12 of the patent at issue. As for the mounting position of the circuit board, claim 1 of the patent at issue does not define it; the technical feature of the accused products concerning the mounting position of the circuit board is an added technical feature relative to the patent at issue and does not affect the conclusion on patent infringement. Even taking a step back, and construing the claims in accordance with the principle of conformity with the object of the invention, the accused products of the above models also conform to the object of the invention of the patent at issue. According to the description of the patent at issue, the patent at issue aims to solve three technical problems: that the direction of the socket of the electrical connector differs from the direction of the socket of the mobile terminal, affecting usage habits; that the extension of the pin portion of the plug in the horizontal direction makes the mobile terminal excessively large; and that the plug, the circuit board and the socket form a sandwich, making the mobile terminal thick. In response to those technical problems, claims 1 and 12 of the patent at issue solve, respectively, the first and second problems above by means of "being led out from the end of the insertion portion and extending a first distance in the vertical direction and then extending a second distance in the horizontal direction towards the front end of the insertion portion" and "a socket having a receiving portion and a second pin portion, the receiving portion having a plurality of electrical contacts, the second pin portion having a plurality of pins electrically connected to the electrical contacts respectively, the pins being led out from the end of the receiving portion and extending a third distance in the horizontal direction". The electrical connection structure in the accused products of the above models possesses those technical features and can solve the first two technical problems, thereby conforming to the above objects of the invention of the patent at issue. Although a person of ordinary skill in the art may, on the basis of the technical solutions recorded in claims 1 and 12, adopt a manner in which the circuit board is connected horizontally to the socket so as to further reduce the thickness of the mobile terminal, this does not mean that only mobile terminals adopting that manner of connection fall within the scope of protection of claims 1 and 12. In designing mobile terminal products, a person of ordinary skill in the art may select the layout of the circuit board according to specific needs. The first-instance judgment's exclusion of the "sandwich" structure from the scope of protection of claims 1 and 12 constitutes an erroneous interpretation of the content of the claims of the patent at issue and also violates the all-elements rule of patent infringement determination. In summary, the accused products of models S1, S5, S6, S7, S10, S10pro and S11 all possess all the technical features of the claims asserted by Company Ku and fall within the scope of protection of claims 1-3, 7, 12 and 13.

[Related index]

Article 2 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Patent Infringement Dispute Cases

Source: Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court　Date: 11 September 2026　Original link: https://ipc.court.gov.cn/zh-cn/news/view-6045.html