The results of the old case have not yet been announced, and a new dispute has begun. Recently, Zhuhai Gree Electric Appliances Co., Ltd. added a court announcement, stating that the related case involves Gree Electric suing seven defendants, including Ox Air Conditioning Co., Ltd., for infringement of trade secrets and claiming 99 million yuan.

Gree sued again, demanding compensation of 99 million yuan

On July 16th, the People's Court website revealed that the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court had accepted the case of a dispute between the plaintiff Zhuhai Gree Electric Appliances Co., Ltd. and the defendant Ox Air Conditioning Co., Ltd., Ningbo Aosheng Trading Co., Ltd., Shang Bin, Liu Juan, Gu Tangtang, Wu Qingzhuang, and Huang Jiabai over the infringement of trade secrets.

Gree Electric Appliances appealed to the court to order the seven defendants to immediately stop infringing on the plaintiff's trade secrets, including immediately stopping disclosing, using, or allowing others to use the plaintiff's trade secrets, permanently deleting electronic data containing the plaintiff's trade secrets, and destroying air conditioning products, molds, technical drawings, and other carriers manufactured using the plaintiff's trade secrets; At the same time, it was ordered that Oakes transfer 8 patent rights to Gree Electric Appliances and demanded that the seven defendants compensate for economic losses and reasonable rights protection costs of 99 million yuan.

Entangled and entangled, Gree and Ox have staged years of 'enmity and enmity'

In fact, for Gree Electric and Ox, lawsuits have long been a common occurrence, and this "entanglement" has been a battle for more than 10 years.

According to previous reports, Ox Air Conditioner has been sued multiple times by Gree for patent infringement. In 2017 and 2018 alone, Oakes was sentenced by the court for malicious infringement of Gree's patent rights in a total of 27 cases, with a cumulative compensation of nearly 120 million yuan.

According to official Gree news, between 2017 and 2020, Ox was sentenced 27 times for infringing Gree patents.

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At the same time, Ox also initiated multiple lawsuits against Gree, but almost all of them chose to withdraw the lawsuit due to patent invalidity or facing defeat.

In addition to patent disputes, "talent competition" has also become one of the sources of accumulated resentment between both parties. According to Pengpai News, since 2010, Ox Company has been using various improper methods to poach more than 300 core personnel from Gree Electric's R&D, quality inspection and other departments, and the methods are constantly upgrading. In addition, Gree Electric also stated that the purpose of Ox Company is not only to "steal" talent, but also to steal Gree's trade secrets, by poaching people to "steal" Gree's core technology or the latest project information in research and development. In response to Gree's accusation of poaching, Oakes stated that the company's recruited personnel have never had any labor arbitration with Gree regarding non competition. They have all recruited talent through normal recruitment channels and will focus on understanding whether the talent has a confidentiality agreement and non competition.

Gree's cumulative number of patents has exceeded 100000

At the beginning of this year, Forward Industry Research Institute released the "Top 10 Patent Applications in the Global Home Appliance Industry in 2022". Among them, Gree Electric Appliances ranked first with 5725 patents, becoming the enterprise with the highest number of patent applications in the home appliance industry in 2022.

From "Good Air Conditioning, Gree Made" to "Good Electrical Appliances, Gree Made", Gree Electric Appliances follows the trend of high-quality development in the new era, always adhering to independent innovation and research and development, and constantly overcoming obstacles in the patent field to achieve success.

In April 2022, Gree Titanium won the gold medal of the China Patent Award, winning the "first gold" for invention patents in the lithium battery industry, and is currently the only lithium battery product patent in the new energy industry to receive a gold medal.

As of now, the cumulative number of patents of Gree Electric Appliances has exceeded 100000, and the authorized number of invention patents has remained among the top ten in the country for six consecutive years.

Patent technology is a direct reflection of the achievements of independent innovation in enterprises, and it is also a measure of the strength of independent innovation in enterprises. Nowadays, the pressure of competition among enterprises is increasing, and enterprises need to invest more energy in patent layout in order to establish their own competitive barriers in market competition.

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