WeChat Code Scanning Payment Infringed Related Invention Patent Right, Tencent and Related Companies were Sued

On February 22, the first-instance civil judgment of Beijing Weika Shidai Information Technology Co., Ltd. and Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. for infringement of invention patent rights was published. The case number is (2017) Jing 73 Minchu No. 1789, the plaintiffs are Beijing Weika Shidai Information Technology Co., Ltd. and Aspire Information Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., and the defendants are Tenpay Payment Technology Co., Ltd. and Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. Company, Vancl Eslite (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd.

 

The result of the judgment, in this case, was: the litigation claims of the plaintiffs Beijing Weika Shidai Information Technology Co., Ltd. and Aspire Information Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. were rejected.

 

According to the judgment, the plaintiffs Weika Company and Aspire Company claimed that the two plaintiffs were patentees named "system and method for collecting and analyzing multi-field QR codes" (referred to as the patent involved). The claim 14 of the involved patent can be divided into six steps. After comparison, Tencent has implemented steps one to four, Tenpay has implemented steps five and six, and Vancl has provided a multi-field QR code for the WeChat scan code payment service used on its operating website, which constitutes aiding infringement. Wechat Company and Aspire Company filed the following litigation requests: order Tenpay and Tencent to stop using the ××× payment mode 2 service; order Vancl to stop using the WeChat scan code payment service; order the three defendants to total 1 million yuan and so on.

 

Tencent and Tenpay jointly argued that the WeChat scan code payment service involved in the case did not fall into its protection scope and did not constitute equivalent infringement. The WeChat payment method only changed the status of the QR code. Fancl replied that: Fancl is not a user of the patent involved and did not participate in the WeChat scan code payment service. On July 22, 2014, Vancl and Tenpay signed the "WeChat Payment Service Agreement". The actual users of WeChat payment by scanning the QR code are Internet users.