专利侵权中等同原则适用的发展

Development of Doctrine of Equivalent in Patent Infringement

等同原则在专利侵权纠纷中适用广泛,最新的司法解释对于等同原则的具体适用方式做出了修改,直接表现为对于专利权保护范围的认定变化,而专利权保护范围的变化会直接影响专利申请文件中权利要求书的撰写。通过分析等同原则的变化,可以判断专利申请人会在撰写权利要求书的时候会减少技术特征的数量,由此判定专利行政管理部门在专利审查工作中面临的缺少必要技术特征缺陷会增多,同时由于技术特征的减少引起的不满足创造性的问题也会增多。

Doctrine of equivalent is applied in patent infringement abroad. The new judicial interpretation amended the application of doctrine of equivalent in patent infringement and the cognizance of patent protection scope. The change of patent protection scope could directly influence the claims writing in patent applications. Based on the analysis of the change of doctrine of equivalent, a conclusion could be made that patent applicants would reduce technical features when writing the claims documents, and that the patent administration would meet more questions of lack of essential technical features in patent examination. Meanwhile the reduction of technical features could bring more questions of lack of creativeness.