Patent Infringement Judgment Principles

The implementation of the Patent Law in China already has more than 20 yearsof practice time, so patent system has been basically established. Providing effectiveprotection for the patentee is the core of the entire patent system, and thedetermination of its corresponding——patent infringement is a crucial element. Butpatent infringement judgment is always a difficult problem in the judicial practice allover the world. It involves not only a legal issue, also involves technical issues,including science and technology in all fields and aspects. With the development ofthe times, the close relationship of patent system and scientific & technologicalprogress also has brought many new issues, new choices for patent infringementjudgment. In 2006, China has launched the third amendment of Patent Law and theimplementation details, in which improving the protection of patents and the standardof patent infringement judgment is one of the important amendments. This paper isthe choice in the background.According to existing laws, regulations and judicial practice, this paper uses thehistorical analysis, comparative analysis and Chinese and foreign case study analysisresearch methods. This article surveys the action of patent infringement, bases on theproposition and application of the determination doctrines of patent infringement.Then, the rational analysis on the patent infringement determination doctrines mainlyconstraints of the four components: applying directly literal infringement, theapplication of the principle of equivalents, querying about the principle of superfluityestablishing and applying the three principles of restriction. Finally, the forth partproposes some added advice for the third revision about Patent Law and how toguarantee fair trial in patent infringement cases, and tries to establish a standardizedand practical process model of the application of the patent infringementdetermination doctrines to guide the actual patent case. Thus, I hope that thediscussion in this article is helpful for the development and improvement of patentinfringement judgment in our patent system.