Floor lock technology originated in Europe, and its core technology has been monopolized by two European enterprises. If China flooring enterprises want to enter the global market smoothly, they must pay high technical patent fees and participate in the global flooring market competition.
The lack of independent intellectual property rights in lock technology has become the biggest bottleneck for China flooring enterprises to enter the international market.
In the early 1980s, European enterprises took the lead in adopting fiberboard as the floor substrate and established the business of mass production of composite wood flooring. At the same time, they also began to study the ground lock technology. Because the locking technology solves the connection problem between floors (high density fiberboard or medium density fiberboard), fiberboard can be used as the floor substrate, thus greatly increasing its sales area. Therefore, locking technology has become the core technology of composite wood flooring industry.
In 1990s, European companies Unilin and Valinge have mastered the core and the most valuable patent of the early "horizontal lock" structure, namely the floor lock technology. For more than ten years, global flooring enterprises have basically applied the patented technologies of Unilin and Valinge, and paid a large amount of patent licensing fees to European flooring giants every year.
Among them, Unilin once levied a high patent fee on China flooring enterprises, and China flooring enterprises paid a patent fee of 1 USD per square meter for the flooring produced by Unilin locking technology, which was more than twice the European enterprise standard at the same time. According to the figure of exporting 30 million square meters of composite flooring to the United States, China enterprises have to pay19.5 million U.S. dollars (excluding one-time royalties) to Unilin every year.
The traditional European-style floor lock technology adopts the "tongue and groove" structure of horizontal lock to realize the connection between floors. In the tongue-and-groove structure of this horizontal lock, by horizontally moving the tenon into the tongue-and-groove in the same plane as the floor, the tenon and the corresponding tongue-and-groove can be easily connected. However, under this structure, the tenon-mortise connection will be easy to loosen due to external force or temperature-related factors. Moreover, the floor with this "tongue and groove" structure needs some tools during installation, and it is usually difficult for one person to complete the installation work alone. Yan Jialong realized the importance of lock patent to Yan Jialong and the global market expansion of China flooring enterprises from the beginning of entering the floor field, and began to set up a professional lock R&D center to engage in lock technology research and development.
In 2004, when Yan Jialong participated in the exhibition in Europe, he was confronted with the embarrassing scene of foreign parties sealing up products, on-site investigation and seizure of goods. From that moment on, Yanjialong people clearly realized that if they want to occupy a place in the international market, they must have their own independent intellectual property rights, and get rid of the painful situation that China floors were controlled by others and passively beaten.
Only independent intellectual property rights can realize the real core competitiveness of China flooring enterprises. Therefore, Yan Jialong strengthened his determination to develop and own the patented lock technology with independent intellectual property rights, and accelerated the pace of research and development of the patented lock technology.
After more than ten years of repeated experiments, demonstration and application, Yan Jialong's lock research and development team finally successfully developed a unique "hit it off" lock technology at 1996. The "click-click" floor lock technology can not only realize the horizontal connection between floor blocks, but also ensure that the floor blocks will not loosen and slide in the horizontal and vertical directions by providing a new hook locking structure for vertical locks. In addition, the floor installation of this locking structure is more convenient, and one person can easily complete the installation. Because the locking structure only needs to apply pressure in the direction perpendicular to the upper surface of the floor, and does not need to apply pressure in the direction horizontal to the upper surface of the floor through tools such as hooks, the floor with the locking structure can also realize personalized mosaic installation, and it is also convenient to install in corners. At the same time, because the locking structure and the connecting principle of the invention have higher requirements on the elasticity and toughness of the floor substrate, a substrate with higher density and better quality is generally needed to be competent. To sum up, the floor products using the "hit it off" floor lock technology generally have better quality, more convenient installation, firmer connection and longer service life.
Yan Jialong successfully applied the "hit it off" locking technology to its export products. Yan Jialong's flooring products quickly occupied the American and European markets with its high-end, cutting-edge performance and quality, which deeply disturbed Unilin and Valinge, which once dominated the world flooring industry, because this patented technology with China's core property rights moved their "cheese". In July 2005, Unilever launched a deadly 337 investigation in the United States. With strong economic strength and the same ideological advantage, they brought more than a dozen China flooring enterprises together with Yan Jialong to court in an attempt to strangle China national enterprises in the cradle, but the facts once again proved that their unreasonable demands could not be sympathized with just people. In July 2006, the United States International Trade Commission ruled that Yan Jialong's "hit it off" floor lock products did not infringe any litigation rights of Unilever, and Unilever reviewed the preliminary ruling, but the United States International Trade Commission did not even accept Unilever's request for review of Yan Jialong products. In the final ruling of 65438+ published on June 24th, 2007, Yan Jialong's "hit it off" lock became the only product that was found not to be infringing. According to American law, UNILIN can appeal if she refuses to accept the final ruling of the United States International Trade Commission (ITC), but UNILIN did not appeal, which proves that they also agree with this ruling. Flooring (solid wood) has the super advantage that the older it is, the higher its value because of the scarcity and natural characteristics of raw materials. Just like precious mahogany furniture, there is a set of intact original mahogany furniture in Ming and Qing dynasties, worth tens of millions. The "hit it off" solid wood locking floor, such as precious tree species such as red sandalwood, balsam cajan and Panlongyan, can be passed down from generation to generation and reused for the second, third and fourth times. It can be said that the repeatable and recyclable value of flooring leads the global flooring industry to upgrade again in the fields of value, culture and environmental protection.