The scope of protection of a patent is determined by the claims in the patent document.
Theoretically speaking, the scope of protection of the sovereignty item is the largest. As long as it meets the requirements of sovereignty in the claims, it falls within the scope of protection of the patent. However, in fact, not everything that meets the requirements of sovereignty can be protected.
Article 59 of the "Patent Law" stipulates: The scope of protection of an invention or utility model patent shall be based on the content of its claims, and the description and drawings may be used to explain the content of the claims. In practical applications, the following principles are used to confirm the scope of protection:
(1) Peripheral limitation principle;
(2) Central limitation principle;
(3) Principle of compromise;
(4) Principle of equivalence;
(5) Principle of estoppel.
Summary: Because the protection and defense of claims involves various issues such as reasonable generalization of superordinate concepts, equivalence of technical solutions, and support of instructions. The content of the description can be used to interpret the claims, so the interpretation of the scope of the claims also depends to a large extent on the writing of the description. The clear and sufficient correspondence and support between these two parts is necessary for high-quality patents. To be consistent with the theoretical statement, it must be supported by very ideal content, and it cannot be generalized. Each case requires specific analysis.