Recently, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court issued a first-instance judgment dismissing the lawsuit filed by South Korea's LG Chem, Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "LG Chem") concerning two administrative disputes over the invalidation of its Chinese invention patents. The court rejected LG Chem's claims and upheld the examination decision previously made by CNIPA declaring both patents completely invalid. The court held that the two patents failed to meet the requirements of Paragraph 3, Article 26 of the Patent Law of the People's Republic of China due to insufficient disclosure in their specifications.

The two patents involved in the case are likely related to LG Chem's overseas patent dispute with Ningbo Ronbay New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter refereed to as "Ronbay Technology"), a leading Chinese lithium battery material company.

According to the judgement, the two invention patents (ZL201710126448.1 and ZL201710126449.6), both titled “Positive electrode active material precursor for lithium secondary battery, positive electrode active material manufactured by using thereof, and lithium secondary battery including same”, are related to positive electrode active materials with a special crystalline structure.

The Beijing Intellectual Property Court believed that the experimental spectra used in the patents to demonstrate technical effects were blurry and illegible in key areas, with multiple spectra being identical and lacking differentiation. Moreover, these spectral data contradicted statements made by the inventor’s subsequent academic papers regarding the same samples, failing to prove that the claimed special structure actually existed. In addition, the preparation methods described in the patent specifications contained logical flaws, such that a person skilled in the art would be unable to replicate the experiments or obtain the corresponding products based on the described content.

It is worth noting that, in 2024, LG Chem filed a patent infringement lawsuit against JAESE Energy Co.,Ltd. (hereinafter "JAESE Energy "), Ronbay Technology's South Korean subsidiary, with the Seoul Central District Court, alleging infringement of five of LG Chem's Korean patents. In response, JAESE Energy filed for patent invalidation with the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO). Until now, 1 of the 5 Korean patents has been successfully invalidated, due to the remaining patents’ ambiguous scope of protection and possibility of being anticipated by earlier technologies, JAESE Energy has filed an appeal with the Korean Patent Court.

Ronbay Technology stated that as competition is becoming increasingly fierce in the global battery materials industry, patent challenges faced by Chinese lithium battery enterprises when expanding overseas have been getting more and more, its dispute with LG Chem may continue. The first-instance judgment by the Chinese court has clarified the core requirements for adequate patent disclosure. Ronbay Technology will continue to actively respond to various patent disputes, protect its legitimate rights and interests in accordance with the law, and steadily advance its international development process.

From IPRdaily

March 25th, 2026