Study Of E-commerce Patent Protection Laws

During the 1980s, with the development of technology on computer, telecommunication and Internet, the E-commerce came into the world, and it is changing life style of mankind dramatically. Technicality and potential economic interest of E-commerce gestate the E-commerce patent.Business method as such isn't the patentable subject matter according to th'e traditional patent system, but because of consideration of economic interest and E-commerce technological innovation promotion, the developed countries, such as the United States, Europe and Japan, amended their patent systems to include the E-commerce method and system into the patentable subject matter since the 1980s, In October, 2004, the SIPO of China issued "Examination guideline for E-business method related patent application", and prescribed the examination standard for patentability of E-business method related patent application. How to establish and perfect the E-commerce patent protection system of our country is an important problem faced by the academia and the legislator.The patent protection for E-commerce includes two phases, i.e. patent examination and patent infringement litigation, and at least relates to the following three problems: Firstly, How to establish examination standard for our country in order to indeed protect the economic interest of our country and promote the E-commerce technological innovation? Secondly, Can the principle and method of traditional patent infringement decision still apply to E-commerce patent? How to explain the function statement in claims of E-commerce patent and how to apply the doctrine of equivalents? How to solve the indirect infringement and the contributory infringement problem? And thirdly, How to solve the patent infringement jurisdiction problem caused by the conflict between the non-regional nature of the Internet that is base of E-commerce patent and the regional nature the patent right protection?Thus, with the center of above-mentioned questions, the thesis includes following content:Firstly, analyzing the conception of E-commerce patent and the related technological content, introducing the actuality and the develop trend of E-commerce patent application,examination and infringement decision in countries, and comparative studying the patentability and the substantial requirement, that is, utility, novelty and non-obviousness, of the E-commerce patent in several important countries.Secondly, studying the patent infringement decision of E-commerce patent, introducing doctrine of liability fixation, constitutive requirements and infringement decision method of E-commerce patent infringement, discussing interpretation of function statement and how to apply the doctrine of equivalents, analyzing the famous case-"Amazon's one click", and discussing the indirect infringement and the contributory infringement problem of E-commerce patent.Thirdly, studying the patent infringement jurisdiction problem of the E-commerce patent, listing the characteristics of E-commerce patent infringement and viewpoints about the E-commerce patent infringement jurisdiction, reviewing these viewpoints and bringing forward the suggestion, i.e. using the long arm jurisdiction of the United States.Finally, based on the aforementioned research, making several suggestion for the legislation of E-commerce patent protection, including: making certain the examination standard of patentability of E-commerce patent, adopting the absolute novelty standard in the patent system, allowing protection of the patent right of the computer readable memory media that recording the computer program of E-commerce, and making certain the infringement decision principle of the function statement features in E-commerce patent.