专利法上的等同原则对于功能性限定特征的适用

发布时间：2018-05-13 06:33

本文选题：功能性限定权利要求 + 等同原则　；参考：《清华大学》2015年硕士论文

【摘要】：根据《中华人民共和国专利法》的相关规定,专利权的保护范围应当以权利要求的表述为准,说明书及其附图可以解释权利要求。通常来说,传统权利要求的解释标准应当是明晰和确定的。而随着信息技术的快速发展,相关领域专利的权利要求中往往会出现一定比例的功能性限定技术特征。功能性限定技术特征本身具备一定的特殊属性,在对相关权利要求进行解释以确定专利保护范围时,《审查指南》的规定与最高人民法院的司法解释却采用了“双重标准”。不同的解释规则势必会在一定程度上造成行政、司法的分歧,对专利系统的稳定性和可预见性产生影响。在统一标准出台之前,有必要就此问题进行探讨。在功能性限定特征存在的前提下,结合等同原则和权利要求的字面含义,专利的保护范围应当覆盖所有能够实现所述功能的实施方式。显然,这可能还涵盖了能够实现所述功能、但有着本质不同的非等同方式。无论最终确定的解释标准是什么,功能性限定权利要求都将涵盖申请人因此可能获得比传统的结构特征更宽泛的专利保护范围。对于专利法原本就不鼓励、不提倡的功能性限定特征,应当将其包含的等同判断与传统的等同特征认定进行区别对待:对于传统形式的等同原则,应当以侵权行为日作为其判断时间点;而对于功能性特征,应当以专利申请日作为判断时间点。这两种情形下,公开内容的技术贡献是一样的,但保护范围却区别对待,这并不违反以公开换保护的大原则,对功能性限定的等同判断采取一个相对不利的判断时间点,并不过分。因此,通过侵权程序中的权利要求解释和技术方案比对环节实现一个相对合理的利益平衡,既不纵容和偏袒专利权人,也不压缩社会公众的自由创新空间。
[Abstract]:According to the relevant provisions of the Patent Law of the people's Republic of China, the scope of protection of the patent right shall be governed by the statement of the claim, and the specification and the accompanying drawings may explain the claim. Generally speaking, the standard of interpretation of traditional claims should be clear and definite. With the rapid development of information technology, there is often a certain proportion of functional limited technical characteristics in patent claims in related fields. The technical features of functional limitation have their own special attributes. When the relevant claims are interpreted to determine the scope of patent protection, the provisions of the "Review Guide" and the judicial interpretation of the Supreme people's Court adopt "double standards". Different rules of interpretation are bound to cause administrative and judicial differences to a certain extent and affect the stability and predictability of the patent system. It is necessary to discuss this issue before uniform standards are issued. Under the premise of the existence of functional limiting features and the literal meaning of the principle of equivalence and the claim, the scope of patent protection should cover all the implementation modes that can achieve the said function. Obviously, this may also cover the ability to implement the functions described, but there are intrinsically different non-equivalent ways. No matter what the final interpretation criteria are, the functional qualification claim will cover the scope of patent protection that the applicant may thus receive than traditional structural features. With regard to the functional defined features which are not encouraged and advocated by the Patent Law, the judgement of equivalence contained in the patent law should be treated differently from that of the traditional equivalents: the principle of equivalence in traditional forms should be treated differently. The date of infringement should be taken as the judgment time point, and the date of patent application should be taken as the judgment time point for functional characteristics. In these two cases, the technical contribution of open content is the same, but the scope of protection is treated differently. This does not violate the principle of "open for protection", and adopts a relatively unfavorable judgment point for the functional defined equivalent judgment. It's not too much. Therefore, a relatively reasonable balance of interests is achieved through the interpretation of claims in tort procedure and the comparison of technical schemes, which neither connives and favours the patentee, nor compresses the free innovation space of the public.
【学位授予单位】：清华大学
【学位级别】：硕士
【学位授予年份】：2015
【分类号】：D923.42

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