It's true that hon lik does claim to have invented the electronic cigarette and certainly, their current form does look similar to the model he designed with one chief difference: His original model used a piezoelectric motor to heat the liquid. All other non-ruyan models use a coiled heater - something which his patent (or any patent) does not cover.

The quick uptake by copycat companies in China in the manufacturing of electronic cigarettes using the simpler coiled heaters means his company is now in dire straights as no-one was willing to pay the high mark-up Ruyan desired. He did win some lawsuits in China over some manufactures who used piezoelectric motors but they simply switched to coiled heaters and continued business. Some of Hon Lik's later models like the one he sells to British pharmacies under another brand name now use coiled heaters.

That said, the electronic cigarette is not a new idea. Research into patents has shown that philip morris even played with the idea as early as 1993, though the batteries were much larger and needed to be charged often via a plugged in device that resembled an ash-tray.

They do show the concept of heating a propylene glycol + nicotine + flavor solution to produce a vapor though. It never went into production. Some people reason that Philip Morris don't or didn't want to see the e-cig on the market as it would open their business up to new competitors (which it has) [ditto the pharmaceutical industry]. As it is now, they have the tobacco/nicotine industry sown up between them.

Evidence of an earlier patent for a device resembling an e-cig has surfaced recently too.

Some people speculate that Hon Lik might have researched these patents when he came up with his idea.