Digi Pro International is ordered to pay TWD510,000 for overall appearance imitation

Zaya Technology Co., Ltd. (Chinese: 扎亞科技有限公司; “Zaya”) sued Digi Pro International Co., Ltd. (Chinese: 德普國際有限公司; “Digi Pro”) for patent infringement and claimed damages on the ground that Digi Pro imitated the external appearance design of Zaya’s product onto Digi Pro’s power supply product under the name, “Apache” (Chinese: 阿帕契).  The Taiwan IP Court compared both Zaya’s patented product and Digi Pro’s “Apache” power supply product, finding that they shared several features in common and thus determining that Digi Pro should pay damages of TWD510,000 to Zaya for imitating the external appearance of Zaya’s patented product.

Zaya successfully filed with Taiwan IPO a patent application for the appearance of their power supply product in December 2013 and the patent term thereof began from September 1, 2014 through December 23, 2025 (“Zaya’s subject patent”).  However, it came to Zaya’s knowledge that the “Apache” power supply product made and sold by Digi Pro bears the appearance of Zaya’s subject patent and thus was suspected of infringing upon Zaya’s subject patent, which caused Zaya to purchase Digi Pro’s “Apache” power supply product as a sample for comparison and analysis.  The analysis result showed that Digi Pro’s “Apache” power supply product fell into the scope of Zaya’s subject patent, for which matter Zaya retained an attorney to issue an attorney letter to Digi Pro to demand that Digi Pro should cease the infringing act.  Digi Pro, however, ignored Zaya’s demand and thus Zaya brought a lawsuit against Digi Pro.  Also, Zaya requested with the IP Court for seizing Digi Pro’s accounting books and records to look into their sales amount and quantity, which would serve as a basis for Zaya to claim damages and to request for a minimum damages amount of TWD510,000 from Digi Pro. 

Digi Pro did not attend the hearing held for the case.  The IP Court compared Zaya’s subject patent and Digi Pro’s “Apache” power supply product and found the following design features they shared in common:  (1) the front side is formed in a rectangle-like shape with four sides and four arc-shaped angles, and the short sides thereof are not parallel but slant; (2) there is an arc-shaped notch on the surface of the front side near the right edge and the notch bears several indicator lights and a USB connector; and (3) the bottom side carries a protruding band.  After conducting comparison between Zaya’s subject patent and Digi Pro’s “Apache” power supply product in their overall visual appearance, the IP Court decided that the visual impression brought by Digi Pro’s “Apache” power supply product is likely to cause consumers to mistakenly believe that Digi Pro’s “Apache” power supply product is the reduction of Zaya’s subject patent and thus cause a confused visual impression.  Based on the foregoing findings, the IP Court determined that the overall visual appearance of Digi Pro’s “Apache” power supply product is similar to that of Zaya’s subject patent.  In addition, based on such similarity, the IP Court also awarded to Zaya the damages in an amount of TWD510,000 on the ground that Digi Pro imitates Zaya’s design by containing all novel features of Zaya’s subject patent into its “Apache” power supply product.  (November 2015)
/CCS