China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has issued Patent Invalidation Examination Decision No. 661985 (Case No.: 4W121613), fully sustaining the validity of the invention patent titled “Cooling Device and Axial Fan for Air-Cooling Lines of High-Speed Wire Rods in Steel Mills” (Patent No.: 201910307020.6). Acting as the exclusive legal counsel for the patentee, T&C successfully represented the client throughout the entire patent invalidation confirmation proceeding and fully preserved the client’s core technical patent rights.

Case Overview

The involved invention patent belongs to the technical field of cooling equipment and axial flow fans for high-speed wire rod air-cooling lines in the steel industry. It focuses on the structural optimization of fan guide vanes and the multi-section parameter matching of airfoil blades. The patented technical solution effectively resolves prevalent industry pain points, including insufficient fan operating performance and high manufacturing costs of conventional equipment.

A heavy industry enterprise filed a patent invalidation request with the CNIPA, submitting seven prior art patent documents. The petitioner challenged the patent based on multiple provisions of the Patent Law and its implementing rules, alleging unclear claim scope, lack of essential technical features, and absence of creativity for all 15 claims, and requested a full invalidation of the patent.

Key Case Arguments

Upon being entrusted by the patentee, our team conducted an in-depth dissection of the patent’s technical scheme. The team carried out item-by-item technical comparison and legal analysis against all invalidation grounds, sorted out the distinguishing technical features and unique technical effects of the patent, and submitted multiple rounds of professional written statements. During the oral hearing, the team delivered comprehensive and rigorous opinions focusing on claim interpretation, technical feature comparison and creativity defense.

In response to the allegation of ambiguous claim scope, our team verified the definiteness of technical terms and the clarity of protection scope based on the patent specification, claims and attached drawings. Against the claim of missing essential technical features, the team demonstrated that the independent claims fully recorded all essential technical features required to solve the targeted technical problems.

The core dispute of the case centered on patent creativity. Our team emphasized that the unique guide vane structure and the optimized combination of multi-section parameters including gravity center, chord length and installation angle of the airfoil blades constitute a distinctive technical solution not fully disclosed in any prior art evidence. The optimized parameter combination delivers remarkable technical advantages, including improved fan operational performance and reduced manufacturing costs. Such technical improvements are not common general knowledge in the field, proving that the patent claims possess prominent substantive features and remarkable progress that satisfy statutory creativity requirements.

The CNIPA panel fully adopted all defense opinions submitted by the team, ruled that all invalidation grounds raised by the petitioner were untenable, and finally sustained the full validity of the entire invention patent.

Case Significance & Professional Insight

As a typical patent confirmation case in the equipment manufacturing industry, this ruling involves complex technical feature comparison of mechanical fluid equipment and multi-evidence comprehensive creativity evaluation. It provides valuable judicial reference for patent layout and stability assessment in the fan and metallurgical cooling equipment sectors.

Patent invalidation proceedings serve as a core confirmation procedure that determines the stability and survival of patent rights. T&C provides full-spectrum intellectual property services, including patent invalidation defense, invalidation petition filing, patent stability analysis, patent infringement response, and technical patent mining and layout. The firm empowers manufacturing enterprises to protect core technological achievements and consolidate their intellectual property foundations.