创造性审查中改进动机和技术启示的判断

Judgment of Motivation and Technical Enlightenment in Patent Examination

审查实践中,关于发明显而易见性的判断包含以下三个层次:能否发现技术问题以产生改进动机;现有技术中是否存在技术手段能够解决所述技术问题;是否能够将该技术手段与最接近现有技术相结合以解决所述技术问题,带来技术效果,并且获得改进的技术方案。针对上述三个层次提供相应的案例,说明当缺乏改进最接近现有技术的动机,或者现有技术中并不存在技术手段以解决所述技术问题,抑或客观上存在技术障碍,这种技术障碍使得技术手段无法与最接近的现有技术相结合,即无法在现有技术的基础上使用该技术手段作出改进进而获得技术方案,此时认为要求保护的发明对本领域技术人员来说是非显而易见的,进而认可发明的创造性。

In the examination practice,the judgment on the obviousness of the invention includes the following three levels:1) whether technical problems can be found to generate improvement motivation,2) whether there are technical means to solve technical problems in the existing technology,and 3) whether the technical means can be combined with the closest existing technology to solve the technical problems,so as to obtain improved technical solutions.For the above three levels,the paper provides corresponding cases to illustrate that when there is a lack of motivation to improve the technology closest to the prior art,or there is no technical means to solve technical problems in the prior art,or there are technical obstacles that make the technical means unable to combine with the closest prior art to obtain improved technical solutions,it is considered that the invention to be protected is not obvious to those skilled in the art,and then the inventiveness of the creativity is recognized.