Facts Speak Louder than Words, and Let Legal Spirit Shine
Sunyield Technologies, founded in 2011, is the earliest company in China to research on near field multi-probe antenna measurement technology. Based on advanced domestic and international experiences, Sunyield Technologies has committed to technology innovations, and developed several antenna measurement systems including the world’s first WIFI OTA testing solution after more than five years’ arduous research and development. As the domestic communication market develops at top speed, Sunyield Technologies has become partner with several renowned labs, large and medium sized communication enterprises. In professional and technical aspects, Sunyield Technologies has acquired several software copyrights, patents for utility models and appearance design patent certificates, and is a high-tech enterprise that has gained affirmation by the Shenzhen City Government.
Market competition is always fierce, and the development road for any enterprise is never smooth. Competition itself is fair, but reputation infringement is unavoidable between competitors.
From the beginning of 2015, an article slandering Sunyield Technologies’ product quality appeared online and caused a series of adverse effects. The slander is from Sunyield Technologies’ old rival, Microwave Vision Group (MVG) from France. Both MVG and Sunyield Technologies are equipment suppliers for wireless communication measurement industry, but MVG’s judgment of Sunyield’s product quality is baseless.
Under instruction of management with legal awareness, Sunyield Technologies quickly responded to the insult and decided to use legal weapon to defend company brand and product reputation. Adhering to the polite, good and temperate national atmosphere, Sunyield Technologies listed and submitted formal business qualification, clear product quality certificates and high quality evaluation reports from our customers to relevant justice department. Sunyield Technologies sued MVG for reputation infringement. After a year and five months litigation, Sunyield Technologies has won the first trial conducted by People’s Court of Minhang District Shanghai.
Based on a large number of legal facts and evidence, after several court hearings, the Court held that MVG has infringed the plaintiff’s reputation and shall immediately terminate any infringement, compensate for losses, apology and dismiss negative impact caused by such infringement. In the verdict, the court holds that “MVG provides no evidence regarding the plaintiff’s product quality failure, and that the plaintiff’s infringement of its trademark rights and other rights is just MVG’s unilateral opinion”. The court held that MVG’s statement regarding “use unqualified system with the brand name Sunyield to replace SATIMO system in the orders placed by MVG’s customers” in the article involved not only mislead the public that there is some problem with the plaintiff’s product brand, but also deemed that there is a quality issue with the plaintiff’s products. The court then made the conclusion of reputation infringement. The Court judgment was issued in January. 23, 2017, and this is the first trial decision. At present, we are not sure whether MVG will lodge an appeal or not. But up to now, Sunyield Technologies has won a significant gradual victory regarding the lawsuit against MVG.
The result of the lawsuit is not only a contest between national enterprise and foreign competitor, but also a manifesto of powerful force of the rule of law in China. In the construction of the rule of law in China, the development of national enterprises will be more vital and prosperous.