A Chinese Internet giant encounters a patent troll. Recently, Uniloc USA, Inc. brought Tencent America, LLC to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on grounds of patent infringement. Uniloc complained that Tencent's IM product Wechat has violated its US8571194 and US7853000 patents.

After careful analysis of Uniloc's indictment, Doctor Long Xiang, CEO of METIS IP, a Chinese IP consulting company, found that the two patents' titles are both the system and method for initiating a conference call, involving method for initiating a conference call via a IM software, they were granted on December 14, 2010 and October 29, 2013 respectively.

An insider from Tencent tells CIP News that Tencent has learned about the news, but has not received pleadings. Once Tencent get related materials, they will take actions to defendtheir rights.

According to released materials, Uniloc requires Tencent ceasing infringement and seeking remedy for economic losses. Some views pointsout that main purpose of this disputeis to seek economic return for Uniloc. Mei Lei, chief lawyer from Mei & Mark LLP, thinks that Wechat has a relatively small business in American markets, this suit will not generate a huge impact to Tencent. Mei Lei suggests a settlement will be an effective way to solve this case.

Long Xiang says that a lot of Chinese company will face this problem when they explore the overseas markets. As the efforts to reduce patent infringement risks, Chinese companies should increase patent stock in the target markets. To do so, Long Xiangsuggests that Chinese companies on one hand should emphasize on R&D investment and patent layout, effortsmust be stretched to improve patent quality, R&D efficiency and patent value. On the other hand, Chinese companies could also buy patents or join some patent league.

(by Feng Fei)

(Source: China IP News)