The purchased foreign equipment has been applied for domestic patents by domestic counterparts in advance. Is our use of this equipment infringing? How to deal with it?

1.A's patent application is not patent infringement. Patent infringement refers to the exploitation of a patent (production, use, sale, licensed sale and import) for the purpose of production and operation without the permission of the patentee.

2. In general, Company A applied for a patent in China, and then Company B imported the same product, which infringed the patent right of Company A. ..

However, according to what you said, Company B can take countermeasures according to the specific situation:

A. If the patent application date of Company A is before10,09, and the use of W equipment abroad does not belong to the existing technology, Company B needs to find the public text of W equipment before the patent application date of Company A. If it can be found, it can request the Patent Reexamination Board to declare the patent invalid. At the same time, the existing technology can be used in the lawsuit (Article 62 of the Patent Law).

If the patent application dates of Company B and Company A are after June 65438+1 October12009, and the public use of W equipment abroad belongs to the existing technology, Company B may request the Patent Reexamination Board to declare the patent invalid on the grounds of public use. At the same time, the existing technology can be used in the lawsuit (Article 62 of the Patent Law).