According to Article 25 of the Patent Law, the object of the patent right is not granted a patent right.
Where the subject matter required to be protected by the patent application belongs to the object that is not granted patent right listed in the first paragraph of Article 25 of the Patent Law, no patent right shall be granted.
scientific discovery
Scientific discovery refers to the revelation of objectively existing substances, phenomena, changing processes, characteristics and laws in nature. Scientific theory is a summary of the understanding of nature and a broader discovery. All belong to the extension of people's understanding. These recognized substances, phenomena, processes, characteristics and laws are different from the technical scheme to transform the objective world, and do not belong to inventions in the sense of patent law, so patent rights cannot be granted. For example, it is found that silver halide has photosensitive properties under illumination, and this discovery cannot be patented, but the photosensitive film manufactured according to this discovery and the manufacturing method of this photosensitive film can be patented. For another example, the discovery of a previously unknown natural substance from nature is only a discovery, and the official patent right of helium cannot be granted (for the review of substances separated or extracted from nature for the first time, the provisions of Section 2. 1 in Chapter 10 of this part shall apply).
It should be noted that although invention and discovery are essentially different, they are closely related. Usually many inventions are based on discovery, and then inventions promote discovery. The close relationship between invention and discovery is the most prominent in the "practical invention" of chemical substances. When the special properties of a chemical substance are discovered, a "practical invention" using this property arises at the historic moment.
Rules and methods of intellectual activities
Intellectual activity refers to people's thinking movement, which originates from people's thinking and produces abstract results through reasoning, analysis and judgment, or must indirectly act on nature through people's thinking movement as a medium to produce results. The rules and methods of intellectual activities are those that guide people to think, express, judge and remember. Because no technical means or natural laws are used, technical problems are not solved and technical effects are produced, it does not constitute a technical scheme. Does not conform to the provisions of the second paragraph of Article 2 of the Patent Law, and also belongs to the circumstances stipulated in Item (2) of the first paragraph of Article 25 of the Patent Law. Therefore, the rules and methods guiding people to carry out such activities cannot be patented.
When judging whether the subject matter required to be protected by a patent application involving rules and methods of intellectual activities belongs to patentable objects, the following principles should be followed:
(1) If the claim only relates to the rules and methods of intellectual activities, the patent right shall not be granted.
If a claim, except its subject name, defines all its contents as the rules and methods of intellectual activities, then the claim essentially only involves the rules and methods of intellectual activities and should not be granted a patent right.
take for example
The examination method of patent application;
Management methods and systems in organization, production, commercial implementation and economy;
Traffic rules, time arrangement and competition rules;
Methods of deduction, reasoning and operation;
Book classification rules, dictionary arrangement methods, information retrieval methods, patent classification;
Rules and methods for arranging calendars;
Operating instructions for instruments and equipment;
Grammar of various languages and coding methods of Chinese characters;
Computer language and calculation rules;
Fast algorithm or formula;
Mathematical theory and transformation method;
Psychological testing methods;
Methods of teaching, teaching, training and taming animals;
Rules and methods of various games and entertainment;
Statistical, accounting and bookkeeping methods;
Music score, menu, chess score;
Methods of physical exercise;
General survey of diseases and demographic methods;
Information expression;
The computer program itself.
This is a mathematical method. If the official teacher can be authorized to issue rules and regulations to the rhinoceros basket, the blow will be too great, so countries generally do not allow the authorization of mathematical methods. In order to find a balance between the interests of inventors and the public, the patent system generally has certain restrictions on the objects that can be applied.
Thanks for reading!