Foreign companies can protect their intellectual property rights through China's legal system, according to the world's largest maker of electric kettle components after a court ordered two Chinese rivals to pay it damages.
Strix, founded on the Isle of Man in 1951, which now provides thermostatic controls for two-thirds of the world's kettles, had accused two Chinese companies of copying its patented technology, which automatically switches off electric kettles after the water has reached boiling point.
The Beijing Intermediate People's Court has ordered Zhejiang Jiatai Electrical Appliance Manufacturing and Leqing Fada Electrical Appliance to pay damages of Rmb7.1m ($1.04m) and Rmb2m respectively.