Summary: Lingyun Yongran assisted clients in transitioning from "litigation to negotiation" to "win-win cooperation", and the case was included in the "Shanghai Court Intellectual Property Trial White Paper"
Lingyun Yongran's client discovered that a certain information technology company in Shanghai (the "defendant") had used its copyrighted Adobe Illustrator software without authorization. In order to protect their own rights, the client entrusted the legal team of Shanghai Lingyun Yongran Law Firm ("Lingyun Yongran") to provide legal services. After unsuccessful negotiations, the legal team of Ling Yun Yongran filed a lawsuit on behalf of the client.
The defendant is a leading well-known game company in China, which has been awarded a series of honors such as "National Cultural Export Key Enterprise", "App Annie 2021 Global Publisher Top 52", and "Twitter China Overseas Leading Brand". However, their awareness of genuine software is relatively weak. During the early negotiation process, their attitude was relatively firm and they refused to cooperate with the negotiation work. After being advised of the corresponding legal risks by the legal team of Lingyun Yongran, they still refused to purchase genuine software to obtain the corresponding authorization.
In addition, as the computers that downloaded the software involved in the case are all owned by the defendant, customers are unable to access and obtain relevant evidence for fixation, and the collection of computer software and its data is a challenge in such infringement cases. In the absence of previous negotiations between the two parties, it becomes more difficult for the client to obtain evidence to protect their own rights.
Starting from business objectives, Lingyun Yongran engages in direct negotiations with key personnel of the company. As a game company, the defendant's use of the commonly used graphics software in the case is closely related to the production and operation of the games operated by the defendant. If only communicating with the defendant's lawyer, it may lead to communication difficulties due to the lawyer's inability to provide accurate answers to specific business issues related to the company. Therefore, the legal team of Ling Yunyong believes that it is necessary to communicate with key people in the company who have the right to speak, in order to use this as a breakthrough point to promote the progress of this case.
After multiple exchanges and communications, the key person of the defendant agreed to directly communicate and negotiate with the lawyer team of Ling Yun Yongran, thus establishing an effective communication bridge between the client and the defendant. This not only ensures the accuracy of information transmission, but also solves the problem of lawyers being unable to provide accurate answers due to the involvement of software and business operations in the case. The legal team of Ling Yun Yongran used litigation to facilitate negotiations, and with the assistance of the court, this case gradually shifted from a "tit for tat" approach to a more gradual negotiation and negotiation process.
In addition, in terms of evidence, the legal team of Ling Yun Yongran has successfully applied for pre litigation preservation measures for the corresponding evidence. Through precise deployment by the court and cooperation among various internal agencies, 32 computers suspected of downloading and using the software involved in the case were finally preserved, and infringement evidence was promptly fixed, laying a solid foundation for mediation.
Under the supervision of the court, the client finally reached a mediation agreement with the defendant, agreeing that the defendant would compensate for the unauthorized use of the software involved in the case for a certain period of time; At the same time, both parties also reached a future authorization cooperation agreement worth 2 million yuan.
The legal team of Lingyun Yongran successfully assisted the client and defendant in transitioning from "confrontation" to "win-win cooperation", which is of great significance for the future business development of both parties in the case: the defendant can legally use the client's software to continue to assist their operations, and the client has achieved their goal of promoting software legalization through this case while obtaining business opportunities. This case was included in the 2013 Shanghai Court Intellectual Property Trial White Paper.
