Release date: April 6, 2005, accessed by 13362.
Patent claim is the core part of the application document, which is the document that the applicant applies to the state to protect his invention and creation and delimit the scope of protection. Once approved, it has legal effect. Therefore, it is very important to write a claim directly related to the interests of the applicant.
(1) General requirements for claims
A all new technical features described in the manual shall be listed briefly, clearly and completely. Otherwise, the scope of patent protection will be narrowed. What is not covered in the specification cannot be written into the claim, because the scope of protection required must be supported by the specification.
B the technical terms and terms used in the claims shall be consistent with those in the specification. Claims may contain chemical formulas and mathematical formulas, but not illustrations. Unless absolutely necessary, the specification and drawings shall not be cited, that is, the claims shall not be written in the way of "described in the specification" or "as shown in Figure 3". For the sake of clarity, the claims may refer to the names and reference numbers of equipment parts.
C. A proposition should be expressed in one sentence, with commas and pauses in the middle, not semicolons and periods. Emphasize the indivisibility and independence of its meaning.
D the claim only talks about the technical features of the invention or utility model, and it is not allowed to state the purpose and function of the invention or utility model.
Claims are divided into independent claims and dependent claims. An independent claim shall reflect the main technical content of the invention or utility model as a whole, including all necessary technical features, and may exist independently. Dependent claims refer to all technical features of independent claims or several claims including independent claims, and contain some new technical features. The dependent claim must follow the independent claim or the previous dependent claim.
An invention or utility model should have only one independent claim. An application for a patent for invention or utility model that belongs to the general inventive concept and meets the requirements of a joint application may have more than two independent claims.
Each independent claim can have several dependent claims.
Where there are multiple claims, Arabic numerals shall be used for numbering. When numbering, independent claims should be ranked first, followed by their subordinate claims.
(2) Writing of the claim
A. independent claim number. 1 You can write the name of the invention or utility model directly at the top of the claim without writing it, and its subordinate claims are arranged from top to bottom. Where there are more than two independent claims, the respective dependent claims shall be stated after each independent claim.
B. Independent claims are divided into two parts:
The name of the subject matter to be protected by the invention or utility model, as well as the necessary technical features and existing technologies of the invention or utility model;
Characteristic part: It is the core content of the claim to state the technical characteristics of the invention or utility model that are different from the existing technology. This part should be connected with the above contents with "characterized by ……" or similar terms immediately after the preface.
Both the preamble and the characteristic part define the protection scope of the invention or utility model.
C subordinate claims are also divided into two parts:
Citation part: indicate the cited claim number and the subject name of the invention or utility model. For example, "According to the claim1...".
Defining part: stating the additional technical features of the invention or utility model, which is a supplement to the independent claim and further defines the technical features of the cited part. It should also be linked with "characterized by ...".
The reference part of subordinate claims can only refer to the claim ranked first. When two or more claims are cited at the same time, only "or" connection is allowed. Such as "according to the claim 1 or 2 ...". This kind of claim is called multiple claims. One multiple dependent claim cannot be used as the reference object of another multiple dependent claim.
D. Two inventions or utility models with the same idea can be filed jointly, so there can be two independent claims. At this time, it is necessary to determine that one is the main one, and the other is ranked behind as the first creditor's right, becoming a creditor's right with independent legal significance parallel to the first independent creditor's right. For example, a product invention and a method invention for manufacturing the product can be jointly applied, in which case, the product is usually regarded as the first independent claim and the method as the second independent claim.
(3) Common mistakes in claim writing
A. Pure functional requirements are extremely beneficial, which is a common mistake of beginners. In general, products must use structural declarations, methods must use step or conditional declarations, and functional or mixed declarations cannot be used. This kind of writing is easy to go beyond the scope of the manual and expand the scope of protection.
B. For general improved inventions, the preface and the characteristic part are not distinguished. The essence is that there is no clear boundary with the existing technology.
C in the independent claim, there are several prefaces and several characteristic parts. In this case, the writing requirements are not clear. An independent claim can only have a preface and a characteristic part.
D there is no reference part and characteristic part in the dependent claim, or the reference of the reference part is wrong.
E. inaccurate and unclear words are used. Such as "equal", "high", "strong", "weak", "good performance" and "best".
F. This claim is not supported by the instruction manual. That is, the technical features written in the claims have no corresponding written records in the specification, or there is no clear and complete explanation.
(4) the general method of writing a good claim
A. analyze the invention or utility model in detail. The analysis content includes product invention or method invention, and the utility model can only be product invention, determine the technical field, study the technical scheme and analyze the technical characteristics. The most important thing is to thoroughly analyze the technical scheme and all technical features.
B. Do a good job in retrieval or novelty retrieval, especially when applying for an invention patent, check whether there is the same invention and whether it is advanced.
C carefully study all technical features of relevant documents, especially those related to inventions or utility models, and pay special attention to analysis.
D. Write more plans and compare them repeatedly. A variety of claims can be written for the same invention, but it is not easy to meet the requirements of the law and Tianjin and properly protect the interests of the applicant. Writing a few more schemes is conducive to determining a correct and reasonable scheme in the process of repeated comparison. Finally, it is particularly important for the first author to compare the explicit claim with the written specification and carefully check the relationship between them.