Yahong Li Comments on Hong Kong's High Speed Railway Patent Infringement Case (new book chapter)

"Invalidation Judgment: Implications to the Reform of Short Term Patent and IP Court"

Yahong Li

in Kung-Chung LIU (eds), Annotated Leading Patent Cases in Major Asian Jurisdictions (City University of Hong Kong Press, 2017), pp 69-83. 

Summary: This is a recent patent infringement case in Hong Kong (SNE Engineering Co Ltd v Hsin Chong Construction Co Ltd [2014] 2 HKLRD 822 (CFI)), which involves a short term patent, Patent No. 1150416 for a construction method for extracting building piles from the ground. The plaintiff claimed that its short term patent was infringed by the defendant, while the defendant raised the defense of patent invalidly due to lack of sufficient disclosure and lack of novelty and inventive steps. The High Court invalidated the patent, and dismissed the claim of infringement. However, its reasoning leaves room for improvement, and implicates the need for future reform of Hong Kong’s short-term patent system but not the court system.