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PRC Supreme Court Announced a Judgment in which a Technology Investigation Officer was Assigned for the First Time in Court Hearing
Recently, China's Supreme Court announced a judgment regarding Eli Lilly and Company v. Watson Pharmaceuticals (Changzhou) Co., Ltd, which had attracted wide attention for a long period of time. The Court held that Watson didn't infringe Eli Lilly's patent, but shall bear most of the litigation fee. The case has the following highlights:
1. Reverse burden of proof in new product manufacturing method patentinfringement
According to the Chinese patent law, the burden of proof is reversed for new product manufacturing method patent infringement, that is, the defendant who manufactured the same product shall provide evidence to show its product manufacturing method is different from the patented method. In this case, both parties had no objection that Olanzapine is a new product according to the patent law. In view of this, the Court determined that Watson shall bear the burden of proof to show that its Olanzapine manufacturing method is different from the method of the concerned patent. In other words, Watson shall provide evidence to prove that the reaction route of its actually used Olanzapine manufacturing method doesn't fall within the scope of the concerned patent; otherwise, if Watson fails to provide such evidence, the court will presume that the allegations of Eli Lilly are established.
2. Dishonest court behaviors should be punished
In a prior case associated with this case, Jiangsu Province High Court supported the allegations of Eli Lilly for the reason that Watson failed to fulfill its burden of proof. In this case, the Supreme Court held that Watson should and could have submitted evidence to show the Olanzapine manufacturing process it actually used but failed to do so in the prior case, and made dishonest statements in this regard, which led to the prior decision that the allegations of Eli Lilly were supported because Watson failed to fulfill its burden of proof. In this case, Watson provided supplementary evidence which proves its manufacturing process doesn't fall within the patent scope of the plaintiff and thus should not be liable for patent infringement. But the Supreme Court held that the dishonest court behaviors should be punished and thus decided that Watson bears most of the litigation fee.
3. A technology investigation officer is assigned for fact finding
In this case, the Court had to determine the reaction route of Watson's Olanzapine manufacturing process, which involves complicated technical details of medicine manufacturing and seems difficult to judges having no relevant technical background. In view of this, the Supreme Court assigned a technology investigation officer for the first time to participate in the court hearing so as to address the difficult problem in fact finding due to the technology and expertise required by certain patent cases. Nowadays, the Beijing IP court has been equipped with a team of part-time technology investigation officers, most of whom are patent examiners from the SIPO. It is predictable that after this case, the courts will assign increasingly more technology investigation officers in court hearing for cases involving complicated technical matters.