The Effect Of Internet Information On Patent Law And Discuss On The Availability For Prior Art

Since 1990s ,as a consequence of the advances in Internet technology, sorts of information could be transmitted and distributed all over the world quickly and easily in the modem society with the help of the platform of Internet. The acceleration of the dissemination of information makes it possible that people could acquire and share the information in a very short time. Thus, the disclosure on the Internet of the information challenges the conception of novelty and prior art in the sense of patent law. In 1996, EPO brought a test to the examiners to investigate the use of the Internet. It shows that the Internet could be effective resource for almost all the technical fields, and it also demonstrates that lots of documents could not be searched in other means. The author makes research with the relative provisions of EPO, JPO and USPTO on this issue. This paper does a primary discussion with the issues such as the form of the Internet information and the effect of the prior art, as well as the operation in the examination practice. Based on the discussion, the author makes a conclusion that the Internet information should be regarded as one of the publications in the sense of patent law, furthermore, the author gives some suggestions with the issues in the examination practice such as the time, place and content of the disclosure. It is hoped to be useful for the amendment of the patent law. It is worthy to point out that the JPO had made its patent law amended in May 1999, abandoned the mixed standard of novelty and adopted the absolute standard. It made some additions in the article of 29(1), which is "or the general audience in such places could access the invention with the help of telegraphy lines ", this is introduced for the convenience to prescribe that the disclosure on the Internet could be regarded as the failure in novelty. The JPO issued the Operational Guidelines on Treatment of Technical Information Disclosed on the Internet as Prior Art later, which has provided how to determine the Internet information. This paper makes references of the attempt of JPO, and the author also makes some analysis, which is believed to be useful as the information stored for the legislation and amendment in the patent practice.