The Research On The Legal Issues In The International Harmonization Of The Substantive Patent Law

In the age of knowledge economy, the globalization of the economy brings the international harmonization of rules on intellectual property rights. Since patent is an important element of the intellectual property systems, the international harmonization of the patent system is inevitable.After the establishment of Paris Convention in 1883, developed countries has been pushed the international harmonization process of patent system in sustained effort. From establishment certain common standards of patent protection to simplifying the procedure and formality of patent application and grant, developed countries are endeavoring to harmonize the substantive patent law for the purpose of building global unified patent system. The Patent Cooperation Treaty provides harmonization on procedural aspects, while the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights involves both substantive and procedural rules. The Substantive Patent Law Treaty has been put forward for establishing uniform substantive patent law standards and patent mutual acknowledge system.It is quite difficult to formulate one world patent substantive law because of big different circumstances in different countries concerning their development level of technology and economy. There are large amounts of legal issues involved. This paper addresses some key issues which are quite controversial and have been have been discussed regularly: such as the requirement of obtaining patent, in particular, novelty, inventive step, and industrial applicability, patentable subject matter and interpretation of claims.It is impossible to simply stop the patent harmonization process though it might be harm to the interests of developing countries. The developing countries should coordinate and active positively to preserving the flexibility as much as possible to national patent system during international negotiation. Finally, it is also proposing the strategy of how to deal with the international coordination, pointing out our country should improve the current patent process on the basis of the electronic level, increasing efforts to support technological innovation, preparing for the future international coordination.