The UK temporary ban has no practical impact and Senior will continue to appeal

According to the latest news, Senior has received a temporary injunction from a UK court to temporarily limit the supply of Senior’s battery separator products to vision AESC’s UK until the end of the case. Senior said that it would appeal immediately.
Some legal professionals said that the temporary injunction is only a legal procedure before the trial of commercial infringement case, which does not determine whether Senior is infringing. And the final result still needs the trial result after the formal trial. In the same proceeding, the court generally ordered the plaintiff to promise the court that Celgard would indemnify all damages incurred by the temporary injunction against Senior if it was not successful in the future in a formal trial.
It is known that at present, Senior’s products are mainly sold in China, South Korea and other markets, but not yet sold in the UK market. Therefore, the temporary injunction issued by the UK court will not have a real impact on the sales of Senior.
In fact, Celgard’s suit and temporary injunction on similar grounds in the United States have been rejected by the courts without their approval. For example, in November 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California struck down Celgard’s temporary restraining order against Senior and its U.S. Research institute. In February 2020, the court rejected Celgard’s suit against Senior and Celgard’s temporary injunction against Senior and Senior American Research Institute. In July 2020, the lawsuit brought by Celgard against Senior’s customer Farasis and its affiliates was dismissed by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Celgard and Senior Infringement litigation process:
In October 2019, Celgard filed a lawsuit against Senior and Senior America Research Institute in The Oakland branch of the District Court for the Northern District of California, claiming that Senior had infringed its patent rights and trade secrets. Celgard provoked the beginning of the battle of infringement litigation.
In November 2019, Senior filed a lawsuit against Celgard in the Shen zhen intermediate people’s court. Two cases were included in the lawsuit. 1. Celgard and its affiliates to send Senior customers and end users to malicious slander goodwill lawyer letter, which confused and maliciously exaggerate the legal risks using Senior products when Clegard filed patent infringement and trade secret suits against Senior in the United States. It had a negative impact on Senior. 2. Celgard and its affiliated parties violated the Senior invention patent named “lithium ion battery separator of high solid content water based ceramic slurry and its processing method”. Senior required Celgard to recycle and destroyed the infringing products production, jointly compensate Senior RMB 50 million, and Celgard bear all the legal costs.
In February 2020, the Oakland branch of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed Celgard’s suit against Senior and Celgard’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Senior and Senior American Research Institute.
In March 2020, Senior applied to Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court for judicial preservation of the property under the names of Celgard and related parties Bolitong (Shanghai) Separator Products Co., LTD., Bolitong (Shanghai) Separator Products Co., LTD., Shenzhen Branch of Bolitong (Shanghai) Separator Products Co., Ltd. and Shenzhen Yusheng New Energy Co., LTD.
In April 2020, Celgard filed an application for an emergency injunction against Senior at the High Court in London, UK
In May 2020, Celgard filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina against Senior and Senior America Research Institute, claiming that Senior and Senior America Research Institute were suspected of infringing its trade secrets and unfair competition. It is noteworthy that Celgard’s lawsuit does not include the term “patent infringement” compared to the lawsuit filed in 2019. This may indicates that Celgard has no evidence that Senior infringes on its patents.
In June 2020, Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court ruled that Senior’s application for property preservation against Celgard and related parties was in compliance with legal provisions, and ordered that the property under Celgard and related parties would be sealed up to no more than RMB 20 million.
In July 2020, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California denied a temporary sales injunction filed by Celgard against Senior customer Farasis Technology and its affiliates.
Senior Introduction:
Senior is one of the few Leading enterprises in China to enter the international market and provide mass separator products and technical services to world-renowned lithium ion battery manufacturers. It has a certain influence in the global scope. All the lithium separator products of Senior have full independent intellectual property rights or have obtained relevant intellectual property rights licenses, and have established rich independent technology reserves. Senior core technology mainly comes from independent research and development of the Senior’s R&D center by relying on technical R&D personnel, establishing separator engineering center and laboratory, establishing industry-university-research cooperation mode with domestic colleges and universities, and establishing cooperative research and development with domestic famous lithium battery manufacturers. By the end of March 2020, Senior and its holding subsidiaries have applied for a total of 274 patents, including 28 foreign patents. So far, 114 patents have been authorized, including 46 invention patents.