(GalaxyLink) held a patent litigation press conference at Central Plaza in Hong Kong at 3:30 p.m. on October 16, announcing that it has filed a lawsuit against Tencent WeChat Pay and Alipay for infringement of its patents in the Beijing Intellectual Property Court. Galaxy Link claimed that Tencent's WeChat Pay and Alipay's QR code scanning payment infringed its patent "System and method for collecting and analyzing multi-field QR code". The patent is jointly owned by Aspire Information Technology (Beijing) Company Limited ("Aspire Information"), a subsidiary of China Mobile Communications Corporation, and Galaxy Link.

        This is the second wave of patent litigation initiated by Galaxy Link after suing Tencent for infringement of its graphic QR code patent in March this year. The lawsuit focuses on China's two major mobile payment platforms, pointing directly at their core business of code-scanning payments. The allegedly infringing payment QR codes include online game payments, online e-commerce payments, online pay-per-read, and offline merchant payments, all of which are accomplished by scanning payment QR codes. According to statistics, the size of China's mobile payment market was 38 trillion yuan in 2016, and a large number of these payments were completed by scanning QR codes. Therefore, the lawsuit is expected to have a significant impact on the development of China's mobile payment market.

        As the pioneer and leader of QR code technology in China, Galaxy Link has started the R&D and patent layout of QR code technology since 2005. From 2006 to 2008, when mobile Internet was not yet in full swing, Galaxy Link, as a strategic partner of China Mobile, took the lead in launching mobile QR code applications in China, including mobile marketing, mobile music, mobile media and other applications, and cooperated in the research and development of China Mobile QR code, applied for relevant patents, and popularized its application in a number of provinces across the country. The company has applied for relevant patents and popularized the application in many provinces across the country. Among the patents involved in this litigation, the "System and Method for Collecting and Analyzing Multi-Field QR Codes" is the core technology accumulated by the two parties during the early stage of their cooperation in the planning of QR Code Coupon and QR Code Payment Business.

        QR code started in Japan and flourished in China, especially in the mobile internet market. China's mobile Internet industry is the most widely used and fastest growing market for QR codes in the world. From mobile payment, mobile socialization to mobile marketing, QR codes are widely used in various market segments, all of which have shown explosive growth, and are in the absolute leading position in the world. However, China is not the strongest country in terms of basic and core QR code patents, which is not commensurate with the fact that it is the largest country in QR code application. Most of the patents in China were applied for in recent years and are limited to the specific application level of QR code, Galaxy Link is one of the few high-tech enterprises in China that owns the basic and core technology patents of QR code.

        According to reports, after more than ten years of intensive cultivation, Galaxy Link has more than 40 patents in the field of QR code technology, covering mainland China, Hong Kong, the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Singapore and other countries and regions. These patents focus on the basic and core technology of QR code, and cover a wide range. With the full rise of mobile Internet, these fundamental patents have increasingly highlighted their important commercial and industrial value.

        Galaxy Link said, in its possession of these more than 40 two-dimensional code technology patents, including the patent involved in this case, graphic two-dimensional code patents and many other basic patents are suspected of infringement by Tencent and Alipay and many other enterprises. However, in this round of patent litigation, Galaxy Link only launched a lawsuit against two major mobile payment platform merchants in China and a merchant using the platform. Galaxy Link indicated that it hoped that by initiating litigation against the two largest payment platforms in the field of mobile payment, where the application of QR code has been developing most rapidly, it would arouse the attention and respect of the entire mobile Internet industry for the intellectual property rights of QR code in anticipation of promoting the sustained and healthy development of China's mobile Internet industry while safeguarding its own commercial interests.

        Galaxy Link believes that from June 2017, the State Council issued the "2017 In-depth Implementation of the National Intellectual Property Strategy and Construction of a Strong Intellectual Property Rights Advancement Plan", to the 16th meeting of the Central Leading Group of Finance and Economy in July, which emphasized that "we should speed up the construction of intellectual property rights protection systems in emerging fields and industries", "We should increase the punishment for IPR infringement and violations, and make the infringers pay a heavy price", all of these highlight China's determination and action to protect intellectual property rights with unprecedented efforts. Against this background, Galaxy Link expressed its confidence in winning this patent litigation.

        The person in charge of Galaxy Link said in an interview that as a high-tech enterprise with social responsibility and sense of mission, Galaxy Link hopes to make greater contribution to China's industrial development and national governance through the standardization of its own patented technology while maintaining its own intellectual property rights. To this end, Galaxy Link and Tsinghua University Data Science Research Institute jointly established the "QR Code Security Technology Research Center" in April this year, aiming to establish QR code security technology standards and application specifications, and to provide the national network security and "One Belt, One Road" national strategy. ID basic security technology and tools. It is reported that the secure QR code developed by the two sides can upgrade the international standard QR code to secure QR code, which can be widely used in the fields of code scanning entrance, mobile finance, enterprise authentication, food safety and so on.