In a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange dated February 21, 2023, CALB Group Col., Ltd. (中創新航科技集團股份有限公司) announced that the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court ruled against it in a patent infringement lawsuit for lithium-ion batteries. The Court awarded Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL), the world’s largest EV battery producer, 35.8 million RMB in damages, 798 thousand RMB for provisional patent protection (from the time of the patent application publication), over 202 thousand RMB for reasonable expenses, and an injunction. CALB said it would appeal and is also awaiting a ruling from the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) on the validity of the patent at issue.

From the abstract of the U.S. patent corresponding to the Chinese patent CN110010851B (ZL201910295365.4), the invention 

provides a negative electrode plate and a battery, the negative electrode plate comprises a negative current collector and a negative film, the negative film is provided on at least one surface of the negative current collector and comprises a negative active material. The negative active material comprises graphite, and an OI value of the negative film represented by V_OI and a pressing density of the negative film represented by PD satisfy a relationship: 0.7≤(80/V_OI+43/PD)×PD/V_OI≤21.5, where a unit of the pressing density of the negative film represented by PD is g/cm³. The battery of the present disclosure can have the characteristics of fast charging speed, high energy density, good safety performance and long cycle life at the same time.

CATL has previously sued CALB for patent infringement of five other patents involving positive electrode plate batteries, explosion-proof devices, current collector components and batteries, lithium batteries, power battery top cover structures, and other batteries, with the claimed amount of up to 188 million RMB.

CATL previously was awarded an injunction and over 2.6 million RMB in a lawsuit against CALB for patent infringement of CN108258180B (ZL201810039458.6), which CALB is also appealing.

The filing is available here 2023022100035.