Grandway Advised Netfuture on A Dispute Involving Infringement of Computer Software Copyright Relating to A Key Project in Beijing and Won the Case

In a disputes over infringement of computer software copyright between the appellee, Beijing Netfuture Information Technology Co., Ltd. (“Netfuture”), and the appellant, Dongfang Peak (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd.(“Peak”), the Supreme People’s Court made a second instance judgment ((2021) Supreme Law Zhi Min Final 1368), rejecting the appeal and affirming the original judgment

The case lasted for more than 3 years, and in the first trial of the case, Grandway represented Netfuture to obtain a successful judgment, which identified that Peak did not enjoy the copyright of the software involved in the case, so Netfuture and other defendants did not constitute infringement, and decided to reject Peak’s litigation request.

In the case, the infringing software was used in the relocation project of a famous Class A tertiary hospital, a key project in Beijing, which was a major bidding project involving customized software matched with hardware and involved the access control management and in-hospital consumption of tens of thousands of doctors and patients. If the infringement was found to be established and the use of the software was stopped, it would cause immeasurable and significant impact on the management order of the hospital.

Representing the defendant, Grandway examined and analyzed the evidence submitted by the plaintiff, such as the copyright registration certificate, procurement contract and cooperation agreement, and put forward a strong defense from the perspective of the function of the software involved, the actual use scenario and the reasonableness of the commissioned development work, which was finally recognized and adopted by the Beijing Intellectual Property Court and the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court in both trials.