Nippon Steel Sues Chinese Steel Company For Patent Infringement

Nippon Steel Corp. said on Thursday it had filed lawsuits against Chinese steelmaker Baoshan Iron & Steel Co. and Toyota Motor Corp., alleging a patent infringement for a manufacturing technology associated with a key device for electric vehicles in a rare legal battle between a Japanese steelmaker. and one of her main clients.

The steel company said it is seeking damages of 20 billion yen ($ 176 million) from each company, and has also asked the Tokyo District Court for an injunction barring Toyota from producing and selling electrified vehicles in Japan powered by non-engineered engines. electrical steel sheets. infringement of his patent.

Toyota sold over 500,000 hybrids and other types of electric vehicles in Japan in 2020, with global sales of 8.69 million vehicles.

Japan's largest steelmaker did not disclose details of its injunction request, such as target brands or the number of vehicles it applies to.

Nippon Steel said in a statement that it discussed the matter with the two companies, but failed to reach a solution, with the result that the company went to court to "protect its intellectual property rights."

The company claims that a major Chinese steelmaker has infringed its patent over components and thicknesses required to produce non-oriented electrical steel sheets.

In Japan, it is rare for industry leaders involved in mutual business transactions to be involved in litigation, and this is the first time Nippon Steel is suing an automaker for patent infringement.

"Such issues should be discussed between material manufacturers and we learned about this lawsuit with great regret," Toyota said in a statement.

The Japanese automaker said it had confirmed no infringement of another company's patent prior to contracting Baoshan for non-oriented electrical steel sheets, and also received a written statement from the Chinese manufacturer in this regard.

Nippon Steel and Toyota have faced difficulties in recent negotiations on steel product prices after the former suggested it could restrict supplies to the Japanese automaker due to soaring raw material prices.