Recently, the power battery industry has witnessed a highly anticipated legal dispute. CALB has officially announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL), Tesla, Zeekr, and Avita, accusing them of infringing on several of its patents.

It is evident that CALB's main target is CATL, while also encompassing several of CATL's key clients. From a battery supply perspective, this lawsuit appears to be a patent dispute on the surface, but at its core, it reflects the intense competition for client resources in the power battery industry. According to CALB's announcement, the four patent infringement lawsuits filed total RMB 1.007 billion, involving four separate patents.

These four lawsuits involve CALB's four core patented technologies, namely "battery device and assembly method thereof," "battery pack and battery device," "liquid-cooled plate battery module," and "a type of battery pack." CALB alleges that the aforementioned defendants have manufactured, sold, and offered for sale products infringing upon its patents without permission. It demands an immediate cessation of infringement, destruction of all infringing products and dedicated molds/equipment, and compensation for economic losses and legal expenses. Notably, the highest claim involves the "liquid-cooled plate battery module" patent, for which CALB seeks compensation of RMB 560 million in economic losses and RMB 2 million in legal expenses from CATL and Tesla Sales and Service (Wuhan) Co., Ltd. jointly.

In the other three patent lawsuits, the defendants include not only CATL but also its subsidiary Sichuan Times New Energy, as well as new energy vehicle manufacturers Avita and Zeekr's sales companies. CALB demands that these companies immediately cease infringement and compensate for economic losses and legal expenses accordingly.

According to statistics from Electric Car Gathering, CATL and Tesla have become each other's most important clients and suppliers. Although rumors suggest that Tesla will introduce other battery suppliers, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory currently only uses batteries from CATL, a Chinese battery company, and has no supporting relationship with other domestic battery manufacturers. Although CALB's headquarters are in Jiangsu, it has not been able to secure a share of Tesla's business. Similarly, Zeekr is also a significant client of CATL, and its newly declared models primarily use batteries produced by the joint venture between CATL and Zeekr.

CALB entered Zeekr's supply chain in 2023, with three of the three-yuan lithium batteries from CALB used in three new Zeekr X models declared by Zeekr in June 2023. However, since then, although Zeekr has continued to declare new models, it has not adopted CALB batteries. Avita has declared a total of 33 different models so far, all of which use CATL batteries. Interestingly, Chang'an Automobile Group, the parent company of Avita, has become an important client of CALB. Since 2023, 45 different models declared by Chang'an Automobile have been equipped with CALB batteries, including the Qiyuan, Shenlan, Kuayuexing, and Ruixing series under Chang'an.

Chang'an Automobile is also CALB's largest external client in terms of the number of models equipped. However, CALB has not entered Avita's supply chain. CATL has previously filed multiple lawsuits against CALB for patent infringement. With CALB's counter-suit against CATL, the patent dispute between the two parties is likely to continue for some time. As the litigation progresses, more verdicts may emerge, which will undoubtedly impact the operations and market competitiveness of both companies.