The independent claim shall reflect the technical scheme of the invention or utility model as a whole and record the necessary technical features to solve the technical problems.
If a claim contains all the technical features of another claim of the same type and further defines the technical scheme of the other claim, the claim is a dependent claim.
Obviously, there is no so-called "subordinate right", but from the naming point of view, "subordinate right" should refer to "subordinate claim".
In the third chapter of the fourth part of the Patent Examination Guide:
(1) Specify the scope of the request for invalidation in the request for invalidation; If it is not specified, the Patent Reexamination Board shall notify the claimant to make corrections within the specified time limit; If no correction is made at the expiration of the time limit, the request for invalidation shall be deemed not to have been made. If the claimant fails to specify the reasons for invalidation, or submits evidence but fails to specify the reasons for invalidation in combination with all the submitted evidence, or fails to specify the evidence on which each reason is based, his request for invalidation shall not be accepted.
(2) The reasons for invalidation are limited to those specified in the second paragraph of Article 65 of the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law, and shall be put forward as independent reasons according to the relevant clauses, paragraphs and items of the Patent Law and its Detailed Rules for the Implementation. If the reasons for invalidation do not belong to the reasons stipulated in the second paragraph of Article 65 of the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law, it shall not be accepted.
(3) After the Patent Reexamination Board has made a decision on the request for invalidation of the patent right, it will not accept the request for invalidation on the same grounds and evidence, unless the reasons or evidence are not considered in the decision due to the time limit and other reasons.
(4) Where a request for invalidation of the patent right for a design is made on the grounds that the patent design conflicts with the legal rights obtained by others before the date of application, but no evidence to prove the conflict of rights is submitted, it shall not be accepted.
(5) The claimant shall explain the reasons for the invalidation, and if evidence is submitted, it shall explain it in combination with all the evidence submitted. Where a patent for invention or utility model requires comparison of technical schemes, the patent involved and related technical schemes shall be specifically described in the comparison document, and comparative analysis shall be made; Where it is necessary to compare the design patents, the product design represented by the patents involved and the relevant pictures or photographs in the comparison documents shall be described and compared in detail. For example, if the claimant submits multiple comparison documents for the reason of invalidation as stipulated in the third paragraph of Article 22 of the Patent Law, it shall indicate the comparison document closest to the patent requesting invalidation, and the comparison method used alone or in combination, specifically describe the technical scheme and comparison documents of the patent involved, and make a comparative analysis. There are two or more combinations, and the specific combination should be made clear. For different independent claims, the closest comparison documents can be indicated respectively.
Obviously, the scope of invalidity needs to be decided by the requester himself. It can be clearly seen from the above 1 point that the independent claim and the dependent claim are different technical solutions for protection. If only the dependent claims are invalid, some claims will be declared invalid, but not all claims.
It should be noted that in the claims of patent application, the invention or utility model defined in the independent claim has the widest scope of protection.
In other words, independent claims are the most important. Therefore, if the independent claim still maintains the right, the subordinate claim is invalid and of little significance.
In practice, the patent is invalid by exhaustion method, that is, a claim will be invalid as long as it involves a little problem.