Recently, Xiamen Kingdomway Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Kingdomway), the world’s largest supplier of coenzyme Q10, issued an announcement stating that the company had received a lawyer’s notice that the U.S. Supreme Court refused to accept Kaneka.  According to Kaneka's appeal, Kingdomway was finally found not to infringe.  After Zhejiang Pharmaceutical won the case against Kaneka's transnational patent case, a nine-year-old patent dispute between Chinese and Japanese coenzyme manufacturers officially ended.

Coenzyme Q10 is a fat-soluble antioxidant that can activate the nutrition of human cells and cell energy.  It has the functions of improving human immunity, enhancing anti-oxidation, delaying aging and enhancing human vitality.  It is widely used in medicine for cardiovascular diseases.  At present, it is widely used as nutritional health products and food additives at home and abroad.

The "Coenzyme Q10 Market and Technical Analysis Report" released by the Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Consulting Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences shows that Japan has been producing coenzyme Q10 by microbiological methods since the 1970s, and it was the earliest and most important coenzyme Q10 producer in the world. At the beginning of the century, it has occupied more than 90% of the world market export share in related fields. China is a relatively late country in the world to use Coenzyme Q10, but the application and demand for Coenzyme Q10 are growing rapidly. A technical person in charge of a domestic coenzyme manufacturer introduced to a reporter from China Intellectual Property News that from the perspective of the development situation, the current coenzyme Q10 market has gradually formed a relatively stable market pattern. The global coenzyme Q10 raw material competition is mainly concentrated in Japanese and Chinese companies. At present, the largest Japanese company is Kaneka Chemical, and Chinese manufacturers mainly include Kingdomway, Zhejiang Pharmaceutical, Xinhecheng, Shenzhou Biological and other enterprises.

It is understood that Kaneka Chemical is an important supplier of coenzyme Q10 products in the world.  The company's process of producing oxidized coenzyme Q10 through reduced coenzyme Q10 was patented in Europe and China in 2008 and 2009, respectively.  The numbers were respectively EP1466983B1 and CN100523205C.  Its related patent application has undergone a long period of examination in the United States and was granted on March 22, 2011 after substantial revisions.  The patent number is US7910340 (hereinafter referred to as "340 patent").

It is around this "340 patent" that Chinese and Japanese coenzyme Q10 manufacturers have frequently confronted the court.  On March 22, 2011, Kaneka Chemical filed a lawsuit in the District Court for the Central District of California (hereinafter referred to as the District Court), accusing several companies including Kingdomway and its coenzyme Q10 series of infringing one or more claims of its "340 patent", and submitted a "337 Investigation" application to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) on June 17, 2011.  On November 29, 2012, the ITC issued a committee decision that Kingdomway does not infringe the "340 patent" rights and does not violate Section 337.  After trial, the district court also ruled that Kingdomway did not infringe the "340 patent" rights.  In response, Kaneka Chemical filed an appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  After the retrial was sent back, the local court again made a non-infringement judgment.  So far, the local court's trial of the case is over.

A year and a half ago, in January 2018, the U.S. District Court of Houston, Texas, made a final judgment on Kaneka Chemical’s v. Zhejiang Pharmaceutical Coenzyme Q10 Patent Infringement Dispute, and determined that Zhejiang Pharmaceutical’s production process of Coenzyme Q10 did not violate Kaneka Chemical’s patent. Zhejiang Medicine also lasted for 7 years.  After the "337 Investigation" and several patent litigation, it ushered in the final victory of the Coenzyme Q10 transnational patent case.

From PEOPLE.CN

July 6th, 2020