Is The GUI Design Patent Dead In China?

May 2016, Plaintiffs Beijing Qihu technology co. LTD and Qizhi software (Beijing) co. LTD sued Beijing Jiangmin technology co. LTD on the grounds of infringement of their design patent "computer with GUI", requiring a cease to the infringing behavior and claiming 5 million RMB in damages. However, after a one and a half year trial, on 25th December, the judge made the decision in the first instance on grounds of there being no direct or indirect infringement based on the fact that the defendant's infringing product is a piece of software not a "computer", namely, the two products are neither the same nor similar.

Since May 2014, China has allowed the application for GUI design patents, and the number of applications is increasing rapidly. It is well known that the core technology of GUI design patents is the interface itself. GUI is a software product which can be implemented on different hardware or devices, and its core content to be protected is not related to