Beijing IP Court concludes first patent infringement case on microorganism protection

On 17 March 2020 the Beijing IP Court held that two Tianjin-based companies had infringed Chinese Patent 201310030601.2, which is owned by the largest specialty mushroom grower in China, Shanghai Finc Food Co Ltd. The patent claims a strain of pure white hypsizygus marmoreus (Finc-W-247) deposited as CCTCC NO: M2012378.

The court aimed to determine whether the accused product fell within the scope of the patent. In this respect, it was necessary to use technical means to compare whether the accused mushroom derived from an identical strain of the patent. Therefore, the court requested a judicial appraisal institution to conduct the comparison by testing the DNA sequences of each product and concluded that their entire specific 975bp DNA fragments were identical.

The defendants' claim that the whole DNA sequences should be tested was denied by the court due to a lack of supporting evidence that such a method would be more reasonable.

This is the first case concluded in the Beijing IP Court to involve an infringement dispute concerning a patented microorganism per se and will be worth further exploration in trying future cases relating to this technical field.

For further information on this topic please contact Xiaoling Duan at Wanhuida Intellectual Property's Beijing office by telephone (+86 10 6892 1000) or email (duanxiaoling@wanhuida.com). Alternatively, please contact Wenting Liu at Wanhuida Intellectual Property's Shenzhen office by telephone (+86 755 8276 2920) or email (liuwenting@wanhuida.com). The Wanhuida Intellectual Property website can be accessed at www.wanhuida.com.