After six years, the final verdict has been reached in Geely's lawsuit against WEY for stealing trade secrets and technology infringement. On June 14th, the public account of the "Supreme People's Court Intellectual Property Tribunal" announced that recently, the Supreme People's Court Intellectual Property Tribunal has concluded an appeal case involving infringement of trade secrets in new energy vehicle chassis technology between two well-known domestic automakers due to the "job-hopping" of a large number of employees. It is reported that the plaintiff's claim in this case reached up to RMB 2.1 billion. In the second instance, the Supreme People's Court applied a 2-fold punitive compensation judgment, ordering the infringer to compensate for economic losses and reasonable expenses for safeguarding rights totaling approximately RMB 640 million, setting a new record high in the amount of compensation awarded in intellectual property infringement lawsuits in China.

At the same time, the judgment of this case has made groundbreaking explorations in specific ways, contents, and scopes of undertaking civil responsibilities for stopping the infringement of technical secrets, as well as the delayed performance penalty and its calculation standard for refusing to fulfill non-monetary obligations such as stopping the infringement. It is reported that nearly 40 senior management and technical personnel from Chengdu Gaoyuan Automobile Industry Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chengdu Gaoyuan"), a subsidiary of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Geely Group"), have successively resigned and joined WEY Automobile Technology Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "WEY Group") and its affiliated companies, with 30 of them joining immediately after resigning in 2016.

In 2018, Geely Group discovered that WEY Group and WEY Smart Mobility Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "WEY Smart Mobility") used some of the aforementioned resigned personnel as inventors or co-inventors to apply for 12 utility model patents based on the technical information related to the application of new energy vehicle chassis technology and 12 sets of chassis component drawings and digital models that they had access to and mastered in their previous units. Moreover, without any technical accumulation or legal technical source, WEY Group, WEY Automobile Manufacturing Wenzhou Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "WEY Wenzhou"), WEY Smart Mobility, and WEY New Energy Automobile Sales (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (collectively referred to as "WEY Party") launched the WEY EX series of electric vehicles in a short period of time, suspected of infringing on the technical secrets of Geely Group and Zhejiang Geely Automobile Research Institute Co., Ltd. (collectively referred to as "Geely Party"). Geely Party filed a lawsuit with the court of first instance, requesting that WEY Party be ordered to stop the infringement and compensate for economic losses and reasonable expenses for safeguarding rights totaling RMB 2.1 billion. After reviewing the case, the court of first instance held that WEY Wenzhou had infringed upon Geely Party's technical secrets related to five sets of chassis component drawings, and determined that WEY Wenzhou should compensate Geely Party for economic losses of RMB 5 million and reasonable expenses for safeguarding rights of RMB 2 million.

Both Geely Group, Geely Research Institute, and WEY Wenzhou were dissatisfied with the judgment of the court of first instance and appealed to the Supreme People's Court. After review, the Supreme People's Court held that this case is an infringement of technical secrets case triggered by the organized and planned large-scale poaching of new energy vehicle technical talents and technical resources by unfair means.

The judgment of the second instance clearly states that: 1. If WEY Party violates the obligation to stop using the technical secrets involved in the case, it shall pay a delayed performance penalty of RMB 1 million per day; 2. If WEY Party disposes of the 12 utility model patents involved in the case without authorization, it shall pay a one-time fee of RMB 1 million for each patent; 3. If WEY Party fails to perform any specific obligation within the time limit specified in this judgment, such as destroying or transferring the relevant carriers of the technical secrets involved to Geely Party, issuing public announcements and internal notices, and signing non-infringement undertakings and commitments to keep the technical secrets involved confidential with relevant personnel and units, it shall pay a delayed performance penalty of RMB 100,000 per day for each obligation.

The Supreme People's Court stated that in the second instance of this case, based on the newly ascertained facts and the overall analysis approach adopted in determining the infringement of organized, planned, and large-scale infringement of technical secrets, it not only determined the record-high compensation amount in accordance with the legal provisions on punitive compensation for intellectual property rights but also introduced new and practical measures in terms of stopping the infringement of civil responsibilities. The active and beneficial explorations were conducted on the specific undertakings of stopping the infringement of civil responsibilities and the calculation standards for delayed performance penalties for non-monetary obligations, which not only fully demonstrated the strict protection of various intellectual property rights including technical secrets but also effectively strengthened the pertinence and effectiveness of judicial protection for intellectual property rights.