Application Of The Doctrine Of Equivalents In Patent Protection

The key position of the Doctrine of Equivalents to identifying the infringement results stems from the character of the infringement. At present , the infringement that some one reappear all elements of the claim in his products is really rare.Most of the infringers would like to make some changes to some elements of the claim.so,most forms of the infringement is indirect and concealment. All of these lead to the useless of the literal infringement in the most infringement. Only the Equivalents infringement can protect the patentee's patent right thoughtfully.The Doctrine of the Equivalents evolved from the practice of the administration of justice. Afer about 150 years's development of this theory ,it becomes more and more ripe and abundant.but the judges ,and the lawers ,are still often debating about it . These debates come from the inherent defect of this theory in theory. The theory of the trend-protection is the basic theory for the Doctrine of Equivalents to exist, and it is just the factor that the debaters ignored.The key meaning of the Doctrine of Equivalents is application. This application includes the application in microscopic and in macroscopic. In microscopic,we should distinguish the density of the technology to apply the judgement standard of equivalents by different way. In macroscopic,we should ensure that the doctrine of equivalents applys not only in the infringement stage,but also in the whole stage of the patent ,including the patent examination,lasting and infringement stage.The application of the Doctrine of Equivalents will lead to the uncertainness of the range of the patent scope.This uncertainness has the direct ratio with the degree of the application to the Doctrine of Equivalents.so ,it is the efficient system to diminish the uncertainness with the file wrapper estoppel principle and public dedication rule.It is inevitable to involve the Procedure of Application when we apply this principle. Compared with some other countrys'Procedure of Application,there is still some problems in the procedure in ours . Reasonable Procedure of Application is a important guarantee to properly apply the Doctrine of Equivalents. So it is also important to put forward the reasonable and consummated proposal to the procedure of application.