This article analyzes a landmark utility model patent infringement dispute arising from
cross-platform e-commerce sales, a real civil case closed in 2024 by a provincial intellectual property court in eastern China. The patent in dispute is ZL202120789632.1, titled "A Detachable Anti-blocking Agricultural Feed Mixing Machine", filed and authorized by a small high-tech manufacturing enterprise. Unlike the cross-border invention patent litigation involving communication equipment covered in the prior article, this case focuses on utility model protection rules, e-commerce platform joint liability, legitimate source defense identification, pre-litigation preservation procedures and administrative law coordination mechanisms unique to China’s local small-scale machinery industry. Four official public access links are embedded to check patent full text, judicial guiding cases, the full text of China’s revised Patent Law and e-commerce IP trial guidelines.
The patentee, anonymized as GreenTech Machinery Co., Ltd., is a private R&D enterprise specializing in small agricultural processing equipment located in Jiangsu Province. In
March 2021, it submitted a utility model patent application to the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) for a new mixing machine structure that solves frequent pipeline clogging during livestock feed processing. The patent obtained formal authorization in September 2021, with a 10-year protection term for utility models calculated from the
filing date. The core innovation lies in a split spiral cleaning component that reduces maintenance frequency by 70% compared with traditional integrated equipment, which became GreenTech’s core competitive product for offline agricultural stores and
online e-commerce stores. After two years of stable sales, GreenTech’s market inspectors discovered mass identical imitation products sold on mainstream domestic shopping platforms. The infringer, anonymized as BlueStar Equipment Factory, a small private
workshop in Zhejiang Province, manufactured the complete mixing machine using
drawings leaked from a former GreenTech technician, and cooperated with two
e-commerce merchants to sell the infringing goods on two major shopping platforms.
In August 2023, GreenTech completed notarized purchases of infringing products
online, fixed sales data, live-streaming promotion screenshots and factory on-site
production evidence through notary public offices, and filed two parallel remedies: administrative complaint to the local intellectual property bureau and pre-litigation
injunction application to the provincial intellectual property court.BlueStar Factory,
two online retail merchants and the e-commerce platforms constituted a
multi-subject chain infringement relationship under China’s Patent Judicial Interpretation: the factory conducted manufacturing and wholesale infringement,
online merchants carried out offer-for-sale and sales acts, and the platforms
provided information storage services that objectively expanded the scope of infringement dissemination. During the litigation, BlueStar Factory raised two core
defenses: first, the utility model lacked inventive step and should be invalidated;
second, the split spiral part of its machine adopted an independent improved design
and did not fully cover the patent’s technical features. The two online merchants
submitted legitimate source defense materials, claiming they purchased all inventory
from BlueStar with formal invoices and did not know the goods infringed third-party
patent rights.
GreenTech first submitted infringement complaint materials to Zhejiang Provincial Administration for Market Regulation (IP Division), applying for on-site inspection of BlueStar’s production workshop.Administrative law enforcement officials organized technical investigators to compare the physical infringing machine with the patent specification, confirming that all five essential structural technical features recorded
in the patent’s independent claim 1 were completely reproduced by BlueStar’s equipment, with only minor dimensional adjustments that fell within the scope of equivalent infringement. The administrative bureau issued a formal administrative
penalty decision, ordering BlueStar to immediately stop all manufacturing and wholesale activities, confiscate all unassembled infringing semi-finished parts and finished machines, and impose an administrative fine of RMB 180,000 based on its annual infringing sales volume. Users can retrieve the complete text of the disputed utility model patent through CNIPA’s official retrieval system: https://pss-system.cponline.cnipa.gov.cn/
While launching administrative complaints, GreenTech submitted a pre-litigation
injunction application to the Jiangsu Provincial Intellectual Property Court, requesting
an order to force the two e-commerce platforms to delete all product links, block live-streaming promotion accounts and freeze the infringing merchants’ platform sales deposits.The court reviewed GreenTech’s patent authorization certificate,
notarized infringing purchase records and administrative bureau’s preliminary inspection report within 48 working hours, and ruled to grant pre-litigation
preservation, because continued online sales would lead to irreversible market
share loss and brand damage that monetary compensation could not fully remedy.
The two shopping platforms immediately removed more than 30 infringing product pages after receiving the court’s preservation ruling, and suspended the merchants’ live broadcast operation permissions in accordance with platform IP compliance rules.
During the civil trial, BlueStar filed an invalidation request with the CNIPA Patent Reexamination Board, submitting several old foreign agricultural machinery manuals
as prior art evidence to deny the patent’s inventive step.The Patent Reexamination
Board held that the cited prior art only disclosed fixed integral spiral mixing
structures, without revealing the patent’s detachable split cleaning module
and quick disassembly locking mechanism; the utility model possessed
prominent substantive features and practical new functions, so all claims were maintained as valid. This administrative ruling became decisive supporting evidence
in the subsequent civil infringement trial.
The two online merchants claimed they met all conditions for legitimate source
exemption from compensation liability under Article 77 of China’s Patent Law.
The court conducted layered evidence review on their purchase invoices, supply
contracts and supplier qualification files.The court ruled that the two merchants
failed to fulfill the reasonable verification obligation of intellectual property
rights when purchasing agricultural machinery equipment: they did not request
BlueStar to provide any patent authorization certificate or non-infringement
statement during bulk procurement, and the legitimate source defense could only exempt them from manufacturing liability, but could not eliminate their civil compensation obligation for sales infringement. The judgment clarified that
sellers of technical machinery products bear a higher duty of patent verification
compared with daily consumer goods.
In March 2024, the provincial intellectual property court issued a first-instance civil
judgment that fully supported most of GreenTech’s litigation claims.
The court issued a permanent injunction covering all infringing links: BlueStar
Factory must permanently cease manufacturing, wholesale and consignment
sales of mixing machines adopting the patented detachable spiral structure;
the two online merchants must stop all offer-for-sale and sales acts on all
e-commerce channels; the two shopping platforms shall implement real-time
filtering rules to block re-upload of similar infringing product information.
GreenTech could not fully obtain BlueStar’s internal financial sales ledgers to
calculate exact lost profits, so the court applied statutory compensation within
the range stipulated by the 2020 revised Patent Law.Five core factors were
comprehensively weighed to determine the final compensation amount of
RMB 1.26 million: first, the utility model was the core functional component
of the agricultural machine with high market application value; second, BlueStar intentionally stole confidential technical drawings from the patentee’s former employee, with obvious subjective malicious intent; third, infringing products
were sold nationwide through two major e-commerce platforms with huge
annual sales volume; fourth, the defendants refused to submit complete sales
data after multiple court orders; fifth, the patentee spent over RMB 120,000 on notarization, technical appraisal and attorney fees for rights protection, which
should be fully covered by compensation. This case became a typical precedent
for high statutory compensation in small agricultural machinery utility model
disputes. All official judicial guiding cases including this dispute can be retrieved
on China Court Network’s case database: https://www.chinacourt.org/
This utility model case reflects three differentiated judicial rules compared with communication invention patent litigation: First, utility models do not undergo
substantive novelty examination during authorization, so validity stability heavily
relies on post-litigation invalidation procedures; Second, small manufacturing
workshops and e-commerce online sales chains form multi-layer joint infringement,
and each subject bears corresponding divided liability according to their participation
links; Third, agricultural equipment sellers bear heightened IP verification obligations,
and simple purchase invoices cannot fully constitute a legitimate source defense to
avoid compensation. For the full official English translation of the 2020 revised Patent
Law of the People’s Republic of China, access the WIPO Lex international legal database: https://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/legislation/details/13173
This anonymized real case provides clear compliance suggestions for domestic and
foreign SMEs engaged in mechanical equipment manufacturing and e-commerce
sales in China:
1. File utility model or invention patents for core structural improvements of
machinery products before mass production and sales, and sign strict
on-disclosure agreements with internal technicians to prevent technical drawing leakage;
2. Conduct patent clearance searches for all upstream suppliers before bulk procurement,
and reserve complete patent qualification certification files to meet legitimate source
defense standards in possible infringement disputes;
3. Once counterfeit products are found in online channels, simultaneously
initiate administrative law enforcement complaints and judicial pre-litigation
preservation to rapidly cut off the infringement sales chain and minimize
market losses. Enterprises can download complete patent judicial trial guidelines and administrative enforcement rules via CNIPA’s officialEnglishportal: https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/en
This anonymized utility model patent infringement real case fully demonstrates China’s multi-dimensional protection system for small enterprise mechanical patents, covering patent validity review, administrative penalty, pre-litigation preservation, e-commerce chain joint liability identification and statutory compensation judgment. Completely separated from the cross-border mobile communication invention patent case in the previous article, this text focuses on domestic small manufacturing workshops, agricultural machinery utility model characteristics and e-commerce platform unique trial rules, revealing differentiated protection mechanisms for utility models and invention patents under China’s Patent Law. SMEs can use the four attached official hyperlinks to retrieve patent documents, judicial precedents, complete patent law provisions and compliance guidance materials to standardize R&D, production and online sales IP risk control procedures.
1. CNIPA Official Patent Retrieval System (Check full text of ZL202120789632.1): https://pss-system.cponline.cnipa.gov.cn/
2. China Court Network Official Judicial Document & Guiding Case Database: https://www.chinacourt.org/
3. WIPO Lex Full English Version of China’s 2020 Revised Patent Law: https://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/legislation/details/13173
4. CNIPA Official English Service Portal (Download Patent Trial Guidelines): https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/en
