Patent Restrictions

The goal of patent legal system is for the progress of the whole society by providing incentive to inventors. The function of patent limitation is to protect rights of patentee and prevent abuse of the patentee's rights. The history of patent limitation is of the history of patent legal system. The patent limitation is not only nationally executed, it is also of international practice. The changes of modern patent limitation legal system include different patent protection ideas, systematization of patent limitation methods, and the application of patent limitation as the national patent strategy. The theoretic foundation of patent limitation roots from the Natural Rights Theory and Social Contract Theory, which regard the patent limitation as the combination of rights and obligations. From the angle of economics, the grant and protection of patent right is to prevent the action of hitchhikes, and provide monopolized interest for the patentee. However, the patent limitation is to ensure the diffusing of information and the right of study of the public, which is the combination of "income and pay-out". The patent limitation system includes 8 logic units, namely, patent subject, patent object, patent condition, examination procedure, administrative organization, laws, right protection system, and incentive system. The limitation of patent subject can be defined as the limitation ofqualification of the inventor, the trend of which is the elimination of limitation, and from providing incentive for the inventor to incentive for the investor. The limitation of patent object can be divided into absolute limitation (such as prohibition) and relevant limitation (such as infringement exception). The limitation of patent right includes patent annual fee, patent right exhaustion, fair use, compulsory license, etc. However, there are problems or conflicts in the patent legal system of PRC. Development of new technologies brings great impact to the patent limitation system. The patent subject limitation conflicts include the non-qualification of patent right application for inventors without nationality and the disadvantage of article 6 of PRC Patent Law, which can be solved by the expanded interpretation of the "foreigner" in PRC Patent Law and modification of article of PRC patent law. The conflict of patent object of PRC Patent law lies in the patent examination and 3 types of patent objects, which will be solved, by subdividing the patent law into 3 parts. And the conflicts of patent content include the conflict between design patent right and trademark right and copy right and the problem of compulsory license, which will be solved by setting subordinate rights, setting up copy right registration system, setting up organization for execution of compulsory license and making the Anti-trust Law of PRC.