Recently, the Supreme People’s Court of China rendered a final judgment in an administrative dispute concerning the invalidation of an invention patent involving Medtronic, Inc., a U.S. company, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), and Minitech Medical (Jiangsu) Ltd., the first-instance third party.
Sunshine IP and Sunshine IP Law Firm, representing Minitech Medical in this technological confrontation between a multinational giant and a domestic enterprise, assisted the court in clarifying complex legal and technical logic. The Supreme People’s Court of China ultimately dismissed Medtronic’s appeal and upheld the original judgment, which declared Medtronic’s invention patent titled “Device for Endovascular Intervention” completely invalid.
I. Case Background: The “Patent Game” in the Field of Neurointervention
Neurointervention (e.g., thrombus retrieval, vascular occlusion) represents one of the most innovative and highly fortified sectors within the high-end medical device industry. Multinational corporations often establish formidable “moats” around technological pathways through dense patent portfolios. Minitech Medical, a leading domestic player in the neurointervention field, proactively filed a request for invalidation when confronted with relevant patent barriers.
The patent at issue in this case is Medtronic’s invention patent No. 201710388962.2, titled “Device for Endovascular Intervention”. This patent concerns the connection structure between an elongated manipulation member and an interventional element of an intervention device. The central point of contention was whether this “hook-shaped connection” truly possessed the “inventive step” required under patent law.
II. Legal Analysis: How to Assess the “Substance” of an Innovation
Under patent law, determining whether an invention possesses “inventive step” (or is “non-obvious”) requires not only an assessment of whether it is “new” but also whether it is sufficiently “non-obvious”—that is, whether it constitutes a self-evident technical improvement for a person of ordinary skill in the art.
In this case, the Supreme People’s Court of China strictly applied the “three-step method” for assessing inventive step:
First, Identify the “Distinguishing Feature” and the Technical Essence. Medtronic claimed that its patent reduced the need for intermediate connectors through a “direct hook-and-loop connection”, thereby enhancing stability and reducing the risk of detachment. Medtronic further emphasized that the bent portions of the metal wire exhibited “no substantial surface cracks”.
Second, Analyze the Mosaic of “Technical Teaching or Suggestion”. In legal terms, "obviousness" often manifests as follows: although a particular product has not been made before, similar solutions have already appeared in other products within the industry. In this case, regarding the "connection structure" of the patent in question, although Medtronic's design involved direct connection, the court found that prior art such as Evidence 10 and Evidence 1 had already demonstrated similar direct hook-and-loop or snare-type connection methods, with the same objective of reducing the risk of component detachment. This is akin to building with building blocks—even if the shape is changed, the function and logic of "hook-and-loop" connection were already known and foreseeable within the industry. Furthermore, regarding the technical feature of surface cracks, the court held that medical devices intended for introduction into human blood vessels have extremely high requirements for surface smoothness, which constitutes common general knowledge in the industry. Just as a surgical scalpel must be sharp, it is a basic requirement for interventional metal wires to avoid cracks at bends to ensure mechanical strength and prevent breakage, and this does not produce an "unexpected technical effect".
Third, Distinguish Between “Technical Problem” and “Technical Means”. Medtronic claimed on appeal that the court had erroneously treated the “means” of “reducing intermediate components” as the “technical problem”. However, the Supreme People’s Court of China ultimately held that, regardless of how the issue was framed, the prior art provided a clear teaching or suggestion to apply such a connection method to similar devices. This indicated that the invention did not cross the threshold from “quantitative change” to “qualitative change”.
III. Case Teaching: How Innovative Enterprises Can “Go Global” and “Break Through”
The successful outcome of this case represents not only a victory in legal representation but also offers valuable insights for the domestic high-end manufacturing industry.
First, Dare to Challenge “Patent Barriers” to Improve the Competitive Environment. Domestic enterprises should not be deterred by the formidable patents held by multinational corporations. By conducting professional patent stability analyses and filing invalidation requests against “low-quality patents” that lack inventive step and hinder healthy industry competition, companies can legitimately protect their rights and interests and break technological monopolies within the framework of intellectual property law.
Second, Patent Portfolio Planning Must Return to the Essence of “Technological Innovation”. The quantity of patents does not equate to the depth of protection. This case reminds research and development personnel that when filing patent applications, it is imperative to ensure the technical solution possesses a genuine level of inventive height, rather than merely constituting a simple aggregation of existing common general knowledge or routine parameter adjustments. Only inventions exhibiting “prominent substantive features” can withstand the rigors of invalidation proceedings.
Third, the Depth of Evidence Collection Determines the Success or Failure of Invalidation Proceedings. In this case, the legal team from Sunshine IP and Sunshine IP Law Firm assembled a multi-dimensional chain of evidence, including U.S. patents, Chinese patents, Japanese patents, and industry standards (Evidence 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, etc.). It was just because this evidence precisely covered each detail of the patent that a rigorous logical framework was constructed, ultimately persuading the court that the patent in question lacked inventive step.
