On November 25, 2024, the State Intellectual Property Office issued Invalidation Decision No. 583102, declaring that all patent rights owned by Panasonic Corporation named " Drum Type Washing Machine " were invalid.

After accepting the client's commission, the Hengbo team made sufficient and detailed preparations and ultimately successfully invalidated the patent.

The decision holds that: if a claim has distinguishing technical features compared to the closest prior art, but the distinguishing technical features are either disclosed by other prior art and play the same role as the corresponding features in this patent, or are conventional technical means for solving the corresponding technical problems in the field, then the claim does not have an inventive step.

According to the law, if the patent owner is dissatisfied with the invalidation decision, he or she may file an administrative lawsuit with the Beijing Intellectual Property Court within three months.