## Facts

- Grohe Joint-Stock Co. owned a Chinese design patent covering the visual design of a handheld shower head.
- Zhejiang Jianlong Sanitary Ware Co., Ltd. manufactured and sold handheld shower heads alleged to be substantially similar to the patented design.
- Grohe sued for design-patent infringement, seeking injunctive relief (including cessation of manufacture and sale and destruction of stock and molds) and monetary damages.
- The trial court rejected infringement, finding the accused products outside the patent’s protection scope.
- The appellate court reversed and found infringement, treating a track-shaped (race-track-shaped) surface as a decisive shared feature.
- On retrial, the Supreme People’s Court reversed the appellate judgment and held there was no infringement; the decision was later issued as a guiding case.

## Issues

1. How should a court identify the patented design’s “design features,” and what evidentiary burdens apply to the patentee and alleged infringer?
2. How should functional design features be distinguished from ornamental features when defining the protection scope of a design patent?
3. In assessing similarity, must the accused design embody all characterized design features of the patented design, rather than sharing only one prominent feature?
4. Whether, from the viewpoint of an ordinary consumer and considering prior designs, the accused shower-head design created an overall visual effect similar to the patented design.

## Decision

- The Supreme People’s Court held the accused design did not fall within the protection scope of the patented design and therefore did not infringe.
- The Court required similarity to be assessed using all characterized design features of the patented design, with reduced weight given to features that are purely functional or common in prior designs.
- The Court rejected an infringement finding based primarily on similarity in a single feature (the track-shaped surface) where the overall visual impression differed after proper weighting.
- The Court set aside the appellate infringement judgment and restored the noninfringement outcome.

## Legal Principles

- The patentee bears the initial burden to identify and prove the specific design features claimed to define the patented design’s distinctive visual appearance; the alleged infringer may submit counterevidence (including prior designs and functional constraints).
- Courts must determine the patented design’s features based on full evidentiary review, considering the overall design, prior designs in the field, and relevant constraints on form.
- A feature is treated as functional, and given limited significance in the similarity analysis, when ordinary consumers would view it as determined only by a specific function and not as contributing aesthetic value.
- Features commonly found in prior designs contribute less to distinctiveness; the comparison should focus on features that are visually distinctive over the prior designs (characterized design features).
- Design-patent infringement turns on the overall visual effect on an ordinary consumer; similarity generally requires the accused design to embody the patented design’s characterized features, not merely to share an isolated feature.

## Conclusion

The Supreme People’s Court found no design-patent infringement because the accused shower-head design did not produce an overall visual effect similar to the patented design once functional and prior-art-common elements were discounted and the comparison centered on all characterized, aesthetically significant design features as perceived by ordinary consumers.


Grohe Joint-Stock Co. v. Zhejiang Jianlong Sanitary Ware Co., Ltd., Guiding Case No. 85 (Sup. People’s Ct. 2017)