Patent Infringement Judgment The Doctrine Of Equivalents

The fundamental purpose of the patent system is to protect the legitimate interests of patent holders, encouraging invention and creation, and on this basis programs to promote proprietary technology through a public scientific and technological progress and innovation. However, judicial practice in the accused infringing product or method patented technology with the same characteristics are very rare, often avoiding the infringement through a number of equivalent means, to avoid patent protection.Doctrine of Equivalents is to prevent people avoiding infringement of patent protection, its basic meaning is the scope of patent protection include not only claims recorded in the necessary technical features, but also with the necessary technical features of the technology is essentially the Equivalent characteristics. Judicial practice originated in the United States, has become internationally recognized status with wide influence and legal theory. The Doctrine of Equivalents as the patent system is perfect and patent a unified judicial practice and gradually develop as an important principle.The doctrine of equivalents in the United States Court of patent infringement cases and gradually built up to study the doctrine of equivalents can be for the Legislative sector, the judiciary provide theoretical guidance for dealing with such issues, for broadening the field of intellectual property research, promotion of the Patent Law of Intellectual Property Law as a whole has Significance.In this paper, the patent infringement decision procedure introduced the general path of thinking, focusing on the scope of patent protection of the determination of infringement procedures and methods for determining lead to the same principles described in the patent infringement decision process need to exist. Next, the basic meaning of the doctrine of equivalents, and in the United States, Japan, Germany, an overview of the development process, which focuses on selected U.S. doctrine of equivalents in each period the development of landmark cases, generalize, and to explore the various courts of the United States during the same principles Attitude. Then, on the same principle applies to the theory of analysis, such as the equivalent of the applicable conditions, equivalent to the standards and put forward their own theories on these for some of the views.Then, the paper claims the court expanded the scope of protection by a certain flexibility, a wide range of the same principles apply, will weaken the role of patents in the publicity, so the public can not know to protect the boundaries of the patent, resulting in legal uncertainty, this article on the doctrine of equivalents Present made some discussed. Finally, the introduction of the principles of our national equivalent and development, introducing the associated legal and judicial interpretation, and proposed improvement of the doctrine of equivalents in some of the measures applied in China.