The Research Of The Application Of The Doctrine Of Equivalents And Principle Of Estoppels In Patent Infringement

As the development of society, the knowledge-based economy becomes more and more popular all over the world, intellectual property rights grows importance in innovation and economic development. In which the patent system, as a product of integration of legal and technical, which belongs to proprietary, is an absolute right, also, it refers to public interest. In order to search a balance between private monopoly and public interest, lots of exploration has been done globally based on different conditions by different country. To protecting patent, conserving patent system, encouraging creation as well as possible, the key point is to punish patent infringement efficiently and make judging patent infringement be the precondition at the same time. At present, many countries are following some guiding principles when judge patent infringement, such as the doctrine of equivalents and estoppels .America makes most contribution to the doctrine above. This paper tries to reach the doctrine of equivalents and estoppels of USA and Japan, finding advantages for China to contribute its own patent system and hoping to get some inspiration that used to judge patent infringement. The article divides to four parts:First, introduce the decline of judging patent infringement briefly. This part mainly introduces the theoretical foundation of the doctrine of equivalents and estoppels and the effect to patent infringement judging.Second: the exploration about the usage of equivalents. This part analysis the equivalents according to cases and requirements of the USA and Japan, reveal defects of equivalents in China and make some advance to solve problems above.Third: the exploration about the usage of estoppels. This part first use the same way as second to analysis rules about estoppels, and then point out inadequate legislation about relative rules of our nation, and point out some precondition for using estoppels finally.Forth: the thought about the relation of the doctrine of equivalents and estoppels. This part aims at main view that estoppels is the limitation of equivalents and equivalents have prevail right sometimes compares to estoppels. Also, it rise the author's own point.