从最高人民法院第20号指导案例看发明专利的临时保护制度

最高人民法院新近公布了第五批指导案例,其中第20号指导案例是有关发明专利的临时保护问题,按照最高人民法院的观点,申请人对于专利临时保护期内实施其发明的行为并不享有请求停止实施的权利,进而,专利临时保护期内制造、销售、进口被诉专利侵权的产品,其后续使用、许诺销售、销售该产品的行为亦不构成侵权,但如此一来,发明专利的临时保护制度形同虚设。最高人民法院第20号指导案例旨在对发明专利的临时保护制度进一步予以明确,只不过其结果是使得该制度失去了实际意义。专利临时保护制度不应该被弱化,应当引入临时禁令制度来实现真正的＂公开换保护＂。

The Supreme People＇s Court （SPC） has recently published the fifth batch of its guiding cases, among which the No. 20 case addressed the issue of temporary protection for invention patent.According to SPC, the invention applicant cannot apply the injunction to stop the use of the invention concerned during the time period of temporary protection, which means such use will not be deemed as infringement, including the manufacture, sale and import, as well as any subsequent use, offer to sell and sale, of offending products. This will result in the temporary protection＇s existence in name only. The No. 20 ease intended to further clarify the temporary protection for invention, but actually made it meaningless in practice. On the contrary, the temporary protection for invention should be strengthened, and temporary injunctions could be adopted by courts so as to guarantee a real ＂disclosure for protection＂.