First of all, the questions raised
Patent agency has become an important work in the era of knowledge economy, and its development prospect has been affirmed by many people of insight. However, the nature of patent agency work is far from clear. In particular, the patent agency industry is still in a relatively primary stage, and most employees have not clearly grasped the characteristics and role orientation of patent agency, which has led many inventors and applicants to misunderstand the agency work. Many inventors think that the patent agent's job is only to reorganize the public content, but they don't realize the significance of the agent's work; There are also some inventors who are unwilling to cooperate with agents to provide materials and think that they should collect them themselves. All these situations are related to the misunderstanding of agency work. Therefore, this paper examines the patent agency work from the perspective of information product production, hoping to have a clear positioning of the patent agency and clarify the misunderstanding of the agency work. The standard also expects to provide a new perspective for patent agency work for peers.
Second, the essence of patent agency industry is an information processing industry.
Patent agents have many jobs, including patent writing, patent invalidation, and handling patent infringement cases with lawyers. Among them, the most basic work is the writing of patent documents, and other work is often an extension of this work.
In patent writing, the agent first needs to obtain the relevant technical disclosure, and then writes according to the technical disclosure. The final product is written and submitted patent documents.
As can be seen from the above workflow, the patent agent's main job is to process the information in the technical disclosure book and convert it into another form of information, that is, patent documents. The work of a patent agent is information from the beginning, and the final product is the form of information. This process shows that the patent agency industry is essentially an information processing industry, and the raw materials for information processing are embodied in the inventions of the inventors of the public book; The final product is a patent application document. From the perspective of information processing, the so-called patent application file is a specific form of information product obtained by collecting and processing information related to the inventor's technical ideas. In other words, the process of obtaining patent documents is the process of collecting and processing information.
In fact, information processing industry is a fairly common industrial model in the information society. Its essence is to collect, integrate and package information, and produce various types of information products for the consumption of information audiences. These information products can provide valuable knowledge for the information audience, or obtain information and produce pleasure.
As far as the patent agency industry is concerned, the products of this information processing industry have their own characteristics. First of all, this information product is a legal document that needs to be made public eventually. It can declare and determine the scope of protection covered by its patent for the applicant, so as to obtain the expected economic benefits. Therefore, this patent document needs concerted efforts in many aspects to clearly express the applicant's intention and conform to the provisions of the patent law, and finally achieve the multiple purposes of protecting the applicant's intellectual property rights, reasonably defining the scope of its rights to the public and giving others enough technical information.
Third, the process of patent writing includes two basic links: technical disclosure writing and patent document writing.
The processing of any patented product needs to go through the following two basic processes: collecting information and processing the collected information according to its product objectives. The former is called information collection-oriented processing, and the latter is called purpose-oriented information processing. The former emphasizes the collection of information and requires accuracy and completeness; The latter emphasizes the purpose of information processing, requires the information content to be accurately and completely conveyed, and arranges, combines, deletes, abstracts and summarizes the forms of these information with the purpose of processing as the guide. In this process, it is often necessary to reveal the hidden information that has not been clearly expressed in the original information materials.
For the production and processing of patent documents, because the information to be processed is the original technical scheme that the inventor has, it must be expressed in a certain way before it can be known and used by patent agents, which is irreplaceable in general. Therefore, patent documents, as information products, must have original information gaps before they can be finally processed and shaped, which is generally manifested as patent disclosure. Patent disclosure is an intermediate product obtained in the process of information collection, which does not have the legality and logic required by patent documents, but it must show the true content of these original information. In order to achieve this goal, it needs some logic. The purpose of this logic is to serve the complete and accurate expression of information, and its purpose is to prevent information from being misunderstood in subsequent processing.
In a word, the process of patent writing includes two independent and interrelated steps. The first step is the information processing flow, and the specific product is technical disclosure; The second step is the processing of information products, and the specific products are patent documents submitted to the patent office.
Fourth, the similarity between writing patent disclosure and writing patent documents
1, all require information to be substantive, accurate and logical, and the narrative logic of technical disclosure and patent specification is basically the same.
For technical disclosure and patent documents, the most basic feature is to transmit technical information. This determines that it is different from other types of information processing. Some forms of information processing do not need to emphasize the richness, accuracy and logic of information at all. For example, the production of literary and artistic works can come from life, higher than life. Even reportage, which emphasizes authenticity, has obvious traces of literary processing, and its information does not need to be very rigorous in the process of dissemination. But for the transmission of technical information, its adequacy and accuracy are the basic requirements, and it is not allowed or possible to deliberately fabricate a technical scheme. Of course, compared with the actual technical practice, we might as well do some idealizations, but this idealization is based on strict technical logic and is by no means arbitrary.
For the technical disclosure and patent specification, it is necessary to describe the same logical clues, namely, the defects of the existing technology, the technical scheme to solve the defects and the effect of the technical scheme. They have the same narrative logic because they all serve the same information processing purpose, that is, they all need to provide basic information about why they may be granted patent rights. This same purpose determines that they have basically the same narrative logic.
2. Its ultimate goal is to obtain high-quality patent documents.
Whether it is a technical disclosure or a patent document, its writing process is the expectation of patent service, and its final product is a patent document that has been processed and is expected to be finally authorized by the examiner. Both of them serve the purpose of obtaining excellent patent documents. This is the root of all the connections between the two.
3. Whether the final document reflects the idea of the patent applicant depends on the superposition of two information processing levels, which is the relationship between the stages.
The final quality of patent documents, that is, the documents finally submitted to the patent office and even the documents finally approved, depends on the superposition of two information processing levels, which is the relationship between the stages. This is because information processing is coherent, and if there is a problem with the information source, it will cause misunderstanding and eventually lead to the whole information processing product going astray. Considering that patent agents are specially trained information processors, although it is impossible for them to process information for the first time, patent agents have an unshirkable guiding responsibility for the first information processing; Even through the communication with the inventor, we can keenly find the difference between the patent disclosure and the original intention of the inventor, and help the inventor to supplement and improve the product of the first information processing-technical disclosure. For companies with a large number of patent applications, it is the best choice to train patent interface personnel who specialize in writing public. These patent interface personnel pay more attention to mastering and accurately understanding technical information and have basic patent logic training. They can directly participate in technology development, get complete and accurate technical information in the process, so as to obtain high-quality technical public documents, and make the whole patent document processing process have a good start.
Five, the difference between writing a patent disclosure and writing a patent document.
1, the basic purpose is different.
Although patent disclosure and patent documents are ultimately aimed at obtaining good patent documents, they still have different basic purposes.
For written disclosure, its basic purpose is to express its technical information accurately and completely. It emphasizes the integrity and accuracy of information, and requires not only the information of technical scheme, but also the relevant background technical information, so that patent agents can accurately grasp the invention points.
The basic purpose of writing patent documents, the most basic aspect, is to obtain legal documents that meet the legal requirements, and at the same time meet the needs of applicants for legal protection of their inventions and creations. Therefore, patent documents emphasize legal legitimacy and help the applicant achieve the purpose of protection. All these depend on how the agent accurately grasps the essence of the relevant technical content obtained from the technical disclosure book, and distinguishes and contacts it with the existing technology, so as to provide the applicant with a reasonable positioning of the scope of protection.
2. Different readers.
The reading object of technology disclosure is very single, generally only patent agents. On the one hand, patent agents have been dealing with the inventor's technical disclosure for a long time, so they have a high degree of understanding; On the other hand, at present, the division of labor in the patent agency industry can't make it clear that every patent agent has a clear technical field, which makes the agent's knowledge in this field not necessarily very rich, which requires the technical disclosure book to explain the relevant technical background in simple terms, so that the agent can quickly enter the relevant situation and quickly establish the same context as the inventor.
Compared with the technical disclosure, the readers of patent documents are relatively extensive, including examiners, reexamination committees, relevant technicians in this field, competitors and judges. The knowledge structure and familiarity with related fields of each kind of object are very different, which has different functions and different perspectives on patent literature. A patent document that plays a practical role must be able to pass the examination of these readers from different perspectives, which makes writing patent documents a highly technical job. A patent agent is often honed after more than three years of patent agency work, and has certain experience in invalid and infringement litigation. Only by thinking about the documents you have written from different angles can you become a real expert, which is also the difficulty of patent agency work.
The nature of these two documents is different.
Technical disclosure is a relatively simple technical document. Although this document also needs some patent logic support, its main purpose is to reflect the technical content. Patent documents are technical documents and legal documents further processed on the basis of the former; Patent documents need to extract basic technical ideas from technical disclosure, put them in the overall background of technical development, judge the possible protection angle and scope, and extract appropriate claims on this basis. The above process puts forward comprehensive quality requirements for writers, that is, they need to have a full understanding of patent technology and a very strong understanding of patent law, and can properly think about all aspects of patent documents from the perspectives of patent authorization, invalidation and infringement litigation. The above qualities can only be obtained through long-term training, and the inventor's ability to write disclosure may be competent through simple patent logic training.
4. The screenwriter is different.
Technical disclosure books are generally written by inventors, who generally have a profound and comprehensive grasp of the technical neighborhood and a jumping way of thinking. Patent agents need to be exposed to many technical fields, and the understanding of each technical neighborhood is not comparable to that of inventors. However, qualified patent agents need to have strong logical thinking ability, and after studying the patent law, they can properly think about how to write patent application documents from the perspectives of patent authorization, invalidation and infringement litigation. Patent agents also need to have high writing and communication skills, so that they can better grasp the basic logic and express it in an appropriate form when dealing with the basic information provided by the public content, and at the same time, they can give them some guidance in writing the public content in the process of communicating with the inventors; None of the above abilities can be acquired by simple training. It is precisely because of the above reasons that the value of patent agents in patent applications can be affirmed by all countries that implement the patent system. In the whole process of patent writing, the patent agent needs to realize that he is serving the inventor and must carry out the agency work in strict accordance with the basic information provided by the inventor; On the other hand, we also need to be aware of our active position in the whole information processing process and give some guidance to the inventors when writing the disclosure. For the inventor, it is necessary to understand the work value of the agent, respect his work experience and realize that all the work of the agent comes from the basic technical data provided by the inventor. He can't expect the patent agent to be as familiar with the technology neighborhood as himself, and should patiently answer the questions raised by the patent agent. In most cases, he should supplement and modify the public content according to the guidance of the patent agent.
Six, the main information processing methods used by patent agents in patent writing.
Although all the work of patent agents is based on patent disclosure, it never means that patent agents can't do creative work in information processing. In fact, patent agents also need to do a lot of creative work. Specifically, they need to adopt a variety of information processing methods to present information to people with a new look on the basis of the original materials. The main information processing methods adopted by patent agents are as follows:
1). That is, the core of technical thought is obtained from existing technical information. This work is very important. Among the numerous related technical solutions provided by the inventors, what is the essence and what is the core contribution to the existing technology needs to be refined on the basis of full understanding, and the really important core ideas should be summarized. This is actually a re-processing of the information provided in the inventor's technical disclosure. The extracted content may be able to find the information contained in the inventor's technical disclosure, but it is not clearly expressed. This work is also a place that fully embodies the core values of agents. An excellent agent can sometimes give the inventor a feeling that he knows his technology better than the inventor himself. In fact, it is by no means that the agent's understanding of technology surpassed that of the inventor, but his ability to extract information helped him grasp the technical core that the inventor himself was not fully aware of.
2) supplement. When the agent refines the core ideas in the disclosure book, he often finds that the materials provided in the original disclosure book can not fully support these refined technical ideas. Therefore, patent agents need to supplement information in various ways. One of the main ways is to systematically put forward the contents that need to be supplemented to the inventor. Therefore, the patent agent needs to explain its purpose to the inventor and obtain his understanding and cooperation. In addition, patent agents often need to use their own technical knowledge to obtain relevant technical knowledge from various channels through online retrieval.
3) Delete. On the basis of refining, patent agents usually find that some contents in the technical disclosure book have nothing to do with the theme, and may need to delete branches and leaves to avoid irrelevant contents interfering with the clear logical main line. Of course, this step needs to be cautious to avoid losing technical information.
4) deformation. Patent agents often need to show the existing technical solutions in different ways on the basis of understanding the technical solutions and combining the legal requirements of patent writing. In particular, some patents inclined to the law of intellectual activities need patent agents to take measures to dig out the technical content behind the technical disclosure book, change its external appearance and show it in the form of technology. Such as the handling of business method patents.
Seven, how to avoid information distortion
There are many problems in information processing that affect the quality of information processing. These problems are related to the ability of information processors. It is impossible to discuss the solutions to these problems in patent literature writing. Let's briefly discuss information distortion, which involves both patent agents and inventors.
Information distortion is one of the main problems in information processing. In the patent agency work, the reason of information distortion involves the information transmission process between the inventor and the patent agent, which is an easy problem, but it can be easily solved after taking appropriate measures.
Information distortion includes information omission and misinterpretation. In the process of patent writing, due to the difference of knowledge background between the agent and the inventor, it is often easy to cause the difference of understanding between the two sides and the inaccurate expression of information. When the disclosure provided by the inventor contains specious content, it is very easy to misunderstand the information. For this problem, the following measures can be taken to get a better solution.
1) Provide sufficient knowledge background information. This is to make up for the difference in knowledge background between the two sides. Inventors not only need to provide technical solutions, but also need to provide relevant technical background in patent disclosure, so as to quickly bring agents into the core issues and help them understand the technical solutions impartially.
2) adopt strict logical reasoning to transmit information. Logic is a rigorous and stable way of information transmission, which can make up for the defects of different knowledge backgrounds. Adopting rigorous and written technical concepts and logical reasoning steps can avoid misunderstanding between the two sides. The inventor writes this publicly, which is convenient for the agent to find the link where the problem occurs; If the disclosure logic written by the inventor is not rigorous and the thinking jumps, it is not easy for the agent to understand, let alone find out what the problem is. Similarly, if the agent's patent documents are rigorous and meticulous in logic, it is also convenient for inventors to find problems in the audit.
3) Full and effective communication. Through timely information communication between inventors and agents, we can make up for the knowledge differences between the two sides, obtain complementary effects, and correct obvious understanding differences and mistakes; This requires both parties to fully understand and respect each other's position in the process of forming patent documents, so as to adopt a cooperative rather than confrontational attitude and actively conduct frank exchanges.
Eight. abstract
Understanding patent literature writing as an information processing process will help the agency industry to understand its role orientation, help it find out the links and causes of problems in agency work, and take corresponding measures. From this observation point of view, many other problems can be found, which need more theoretical discussion. This paper only expects to get the effect of throwing bricks to attract jade.