Integrated Circuit Reverse Engineering Legal Issues Research

The intellectual property of IC layout design is a new type IP which isn't same with copyright law as well as exclusive law while comprised of some characteristics of both, especially its the rules of reverse engineering making a landmark sense. However, with the development of IC industry and technology, IC reverse engineering has become a conduct with considerable controversy, which took an important role in the progress of IC technology in every country. Therefore, attention should be paid to the law problems and some measures should be taken to promote the development and progress of IC industry while acknowledge its legitimacy.Currently, the reverse engineering of integrated circuit has a legitimate legal basis. IC reverse engineering makes accessing useful information more effective without spending lots of time, money and labor, which is helpful to realize the fair and justice in IC field. However, it's not beneficial to the innovation of IC layout design and the development of IC industry if don't restrict the reverse engineering. So reverse engineering should be forbidden gradually to take good advantages of reverse engineering.Considering reverse engineering is a legal behavior, it's necessary to find the difference between the reverse engineering and the replication behavior.This paper introduces a case about Brooktree Corp. VS Advanced Micro Devices Inc case which makes important significant sense in IC field. From the analysis of above case, it comes to current available the standard to judge the reverse engineering which is substantive similarity judgment and "hard work and investment" judgment. Then it gives the disadvantage of the judgment standard and put forward a new standard to judge the reverse engineering and the replication behavior, which is filtration method judgment and Substantially the same judgment.