In a patent ruling made by the Beijing Intellectual Property Court last week, the defendant was ordered to pay a total of CNY50 million in damages to the patent rights owner, the highest amount since the court was founded in November 2014. Both the plaintiff, Watchdata Co, and the defendant, Hengbao Co, are manufacturers of USB keys used as electronic authentication devices in financial services. Watchdata filed the lawsuit in February 2015. It said that Hengbao had developed and sold many USB key products to banks across China, using its patent called “physic identification method and electronic device” without its authorization. It requested the defendant cease its infringement and asked for compensation of CNY49 million, plus CNY1 million in litigation costs. Hengbao claimed that the questioned products and physic identification method in online bank transfers were not under the protection of Watchdata’s patent. But the court ruled in favor of the plaintiff. The judicial committee decided to calculate the compensation by multiplying the sales volume of the infringing products by the reasonable profit of each patented product. Investigations found the specific sales volume of the infringing products to 12 banks nationwide, which led to actual damages of about CNY48.1 million. The court also confirmed that Hengbao had provided infringing products to another three banks, but was unable to acquire sales data from the banks or the company, the China Daily reports.