问题专利与专利权的重构--拟议中的“美国专利改革法案”思想评述

Questionable Patents and Reconstruction of Patent Right in the U. S.

问题专利的大量存在不仅导致专利质量低下,也给创新体系制造了巨大的私人和社会成本,这是美国2007年《专利改革法案》出台的根本动因。专利制度的有效运行依赖于审查授权体系和权利执行体系两个渠道,而问题专利折射出来的诸多弊端则反映了专利制度的整体失灵。在三种改革思路争论之后,人们选择了重构专利权,而改革的支点是改变专利权的有效性推定。这是近50年来美国专利政策的一次重要转折。

The existence of a large amount of questionable patents leads not only to poor quality of patents, but also to huge private and social costs to the innovation system--which became main motive force behind the adoption of the Patent Reform Act of 2007 in the U. S.. The effective functioning of patent system depends on the system of acquisition of patent right and the system of enforcement of patent fight. The many shortcomings resulted from questionable patents indicate the failure of the patent system as a whole. After an extensive debate on the three patent reform proposals, the approach of reconstruction of patent fight was chosen, and the strongpoint of reform is to change the presumption of validity of patent fight. This is an important change of the U.S. patent policy in 50 years.