When determining the scope of patent protection, it shall state the relevant claims claimed by the patentee as the right basis.
1. The patent independent claim reflects the technical scheme of the invention or utility model patent as a whole and records the necessary technical features for solving technical problems. Compared with the dependent claims, it has the largest protection scope. When determining the scope of patent protection, it is usually necessary to explain the patent independent claim with the largest scope of protection.
2. Where a patent has more than two independent claims, the scope of protection determined by the relevant independent claims shall be explained at the request of the obligee.
3. Where the obligee requests that the scope of protection be determined by the dependent claim, the scope of protection of the patent right shall be determined by the additional technical features recorded in the dependent claim and the technical features recorded in the directly or indirectly cited claim.
4. Technical features refer to the smallest technical unit or combination of units that can perform a certain technical function and produce relatively independent technical effects in the technical scheme defined in the claims.
(B) the principle of interpretation
1, patent validity principle. Before the patent right claimed by the obligee is declared invalid, its rights shall be protected, and no judgment shall be made on the grounds that the patent right does not meet the relevant authorization conditions of the Patent Law and should be invalid.
A copy of the patent register, or the patent certificate of the current year and the receipt for paying the annual fee can be used as evidence to prove the validity of the patent right.
2. The principle of compromise. When interpreting the claim, the technical content recorded in the claim shall prevail, and the scope of patent protection shall be reasonably determined according to the description and drawings, the existing technology, the contribution of the patent to the existing technology and other factors; The scope of patent protection can neither be confined to the literal meaning of the claims, nor can it be extended to what ordinary technicians in this field can associate by reading the specification and drawings before the patent application date.
3, the whole (all technical features) principle. The technical content expressed by all technical features recorded in the claim is regarded as a whole technical scheme, and the technical features recorded in the claim and the technical features recorded in the features have the same effect on limiting the scope of protection.
(3) Interpretation method
1. When determining the scope of patent protection, the patent text authorized by the announcement of the patent administrative department of the State Council or the legally effective patent reexamination request review decision, invalidation request review decision and related claims determined by the authorized confirmation administrative judgment shall prevail. Where there are multiple versions of the claim, the final effective version shall prevail.
2. The interpretation of the claims should be from the perspective of ordinary technicians in this technical field.
Ordinary technicians in a technical field, also known as technicians in this field, refer to "people" who know all the ordinary technical knowledge in this technical field, can know all the existing technologies in this field, and have the ability to use the hypothesis of conventional experimental means before the application date.
Ordinary technicians in the technical field do not refer to a specific person or a certain type of person, so it is not appropriate to refer to and apply specific standards such as academic qualifications, professional titles and grades. If the parties dispute whether ordinary technicians in their technical fields have a general technical knowledge and can use some conventional experimental means, they shall provide evidence to prove it.
3. The interpretation of the claim includes three forms: clarification, supplement and amendment under specific circumstances, that is, when the technical content expressed by the technical features in the claim is not clear, clarify the meaning of the technical features; When the technical features in the claim have defects in understanding, make up for the shortcomings of the technical features; When there is a contradiction between the technical features in the claim, correct the meaning of the technical features.
4, you can use the patent specification and drawings to make a reasonable explanation of the scope of protection of the technical scheme literally defined in the patent claim, that is, explain the features equivalent to the technical features recorded in the patent claim into the scope of protection of the patent right, or limit some technical features according to the patent specification and drawings.
5. To interpret the claims, you can use the contents recorded in the patent specification and drawings, the related claims in the claims, patent examination documents and valid legal documents.
If the above method can't clearly define the meaning of the claim, it can be interpreted in combination with well-known documents such as reference books and textbooks and the common understanding of ordinary technicians in this technical field.
The patent examination documents mentioned in this Guide refer to the notice of examination opinions issued by the patent administrative department of the State Council, China and the Patent Reexamination Board in the process of patent examination, reexamination and invalidation, the written reply of the patent applicant and the patentee, the oral examination record, the minutes of the meeting, etc.
The effective legal documents mentioned in this Guide refer to the legally effective patent reexamination request decision, patent invalidation request decision and related authorization confirmation administrative decision.
6. If the claim is inconsistent or contradictory with the patent specification, and the patent does not conform to the provisions of the fourth paragraph of Article 26 of the Patent Law, the parties concerned shall be informed to solve it through the patent invalidation procedure. If a party initiates the patent invalidation procedure, it may decide whether to suspend the lawsuit according to the specific circumstances.
If the parties are unwilling to solve the problem through the procedure of patent invalidation, or fail to make a request for patent invalidation within a reasonable time, they shall follow the principle of patent validity and the principle of priority of claims, and the scope of protection determined in the claims shall prevail. However, if the technical personnel in this field can make a specific, clear and unique explanation for the technical scheme to be protected by reading the claims, the specification and the attached drawings, they should clarify or correct the erroneous expression in the claims according to this explanation.
7. If the dependent claim contains technical features that should be recorded in the independent claim and are necessary to solve the technical problems of the invention (without such technical features, the technical scheme recorded in the independent claim cannot achieve the purpose of the invention), then the patent does not conform to the provisions of the second paragraph of Article 20 of the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law, and the parties concerned are notified to solve it through the patent invalidation procedure. If a party initiates the patent invalidation procedure, it may decide whether to suspend the lawsuit according to the specific circumstances.
8. For the functional technical features expressed by functions or effects in the claims, the content of the technical features shall be determined by combining the specific implementation of the functions or effects described in the specification and drawings and their equivalent implementations.
Functional technical features refer to the functions, functions or effects of various parts of a product, or the cooperative relationship between various parts, or the steps of a method, which are defined in the claims in the invention-creation.
In general, the following situations should not be considered as functional technical features:
(1) Technical features expressed in functional or effective language, such as conductor, radiator, adhesive, amplifier, transmission, filter, etc. , has become a technical term commonly known by ordinary technicians in this field;
(2) Technical features expressed in functional or effective language, but also described by corresponding features such as structure, materials and steps.
9. When determining the content of functional technical features, functional technical features should be defined as corresponding structural features and step features necessary to realize the functions and effects in the specification.
10, the method patent claim clearly defines the sequence of steps, and the steps themselves and the sequence between steps should limit the scope of patent protection; Methods If the order of steps is not clearly specified in the claim, it should not be taken as a reason, and the limiting effect of the order of steps on the claim should be ignored. Instead, it should be determined whether the steps should be implemented in a specific order from the perspective of ordinary technicians in this technical field in combination with the overall technical scheme, logical relationship between steps and patent examination documents recorded in the claim.
1 1. The product claim defined by the method features has a restrictive effect on the scope of patent protection.
12. If the utility model claim contains non-shape and non-structural technical features, the protection scope of the patent right shall be limited by the technical features, and the interpretation shall be made according to the literal meaning of the technical features.
Non-shape and non-structural technical features refer to the technical features recorded in the patent claim of utility model that do not belong to the shape, structure or combination of products, such as use, manufacturing process, use method, material composition (composition, proportion) and so on.
13. If the patent claim of a product invention or utility model does not define the application field and use, the application field and use generally do not limit the scope of patent protection.
Where the patent claim for product invention or utility model defines the application field and use, the application field and use shall be regarded as the technical features that limit the protection scope of the claim. However, if the feature does not affect the structure and/or composition of the claim itself, nor does it have a substantial impact on the authorization of the technical scheme, but only describes the purpose or use mode of the product or equipment, the scope of patent protection is not limited.
14. The features of the use environment in the written claim belong to the necessary technical features, which limit the scope of patent protection.
The use environment features refer to the technical features used in the claims to describe the background or conditions used by the invention.
15. If the alleged infringing technical scheme can be applied to the use environment recorded in the product claim, it shall be deemed that the alleged infringing technical scheme has the characteristics of the use environment recorded in the claim, without taking the actual use of the environmental characteristics as the premise.
16. If the explanation of technical terms in the manual is different from the general meaning of technical terms, the explanation in the manual shall prevail.
When the alleged infringement occurred, the technical terms had already produced other meaning, and the technical terms should be interpreted according to the meaning of the patent application date.
17. The meaning of the same technical term in the claim and the specification should be consistent. In case of any inconsistency, the claim shall prevail.
18. When reference signs are cited in the claim, the technical features in the claim should not be limited by the specific structure reflected by the reference signs in the drawings.
18, the protection scope of the patent right is not limited by the specific embodiments disclosed in the specification, except for the following situations:
Claim (1) is essentially the technical scheme recorded in the embodiment;
(2) The claim includes functional technical features.
20, the role of the abstract is to provide technical information, easy to public retrieval, can not be used to determine the scope of protection of patent rights, nor can it be used to explain claims.
2 1. When printing errors in patent documents affect the determination of patent protection scope, they can be corrected according to patent examination documents.
legal ground
patent law of the people's republic of china
Article 56 Where an invention or utility model for which a patent right has been obtained is a major technological progress with great economic significance compared with the invention or utility model for which a patent right has been obtained before, and its implementation depends on the implementation of the previous invention or utility model, the patent administration department of the State Council may, upon the application of the latter patentee, grant a compulsory license to exploit the previous invention or utility model.
Where a compulsory license is granted in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph, the administrative department for patent in the State Council may also grant a compulsory license to exploit the latter invention or utility model upon the application of the former patentee.