The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has invalidated the patent at the heart of Nikon’s high-profile legal battle against Viltrox, according to court documents obtained by Nikon Rumors.
The rumor outlet previously reported that Nikon had likely lost its patent infringement lawsuit and now the outcome appears to have been confirmed.
Technically, the suit isn’t over yet. Nikon will be given three months in which to appeal the decision or could focus its efforts elsewhere. But either way, this is a major setback for the Big N and a major hurdle cleared for Viltrox.
What's the lawsuit about?
Talk of a lawsuit began to surface at the beginning of the year, with a variety of reports speculating exactly what Nikon was suing Viltrox over – the most outlandish being a completely unsubstantiated Z-mount camera.
Now that the dust has settled somewhat, it’s clear that Nikon was pursuing Viltrox primarily over its implementation of four bayonet lugs and the placement of electrical terminal groups (contacts) – but it’s still not clear which product(s) the lawsuit actually relates to.
Nikon Rumors posted an English translation via an AI recap of the 25-page document, which helps to shed some light on the Chinese authority’s reasoning, stating that the legal basis for the invalidation was a “lack of inventiveness”.
What does that mean? Well, according to Strachan IP, a patented invention has to “have at least one novel technical feature over what has been done before,” which is called an inventive step. So, you can’t patent a wheel, but you can patent a particularly innovative axle.
In the aforementioned court case, the CNIPA has invalidated Nikon’s patent by arguing that it simply isn’t inventive enough. The story continues…
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