Patent Exhaustion System In America And Its Reference To China

Since the patent system established in China, our country have got big achievement in improving patent legislation and strengthening the patent protection after more than twenty years development. But the perfect patent system should contain the proper limits on the exercise of patent rights. Compared with other countries, like America, we should make a lot of efforts to limit the exercise of the patent rights.Patent exhaustion system is derived from the theory of implied license, and plays an important role in patent infringement defense system of America. Patent exhaustion system was first established through judicial precedent in America, and has changed a lot after a hundred years of development. The judgment of Quanta vs. LGE in 2008 has expanded the scope of application of patent exhaustion. The development process and the content of patent exhaustion in America could be very important reference to China:On the one hand, patent thicket have hindered companies'development. On the other hand, since China entered into the World Trade Organization, the trade barriers have been changed from tariff barriers to intellectual property barriers, patent has become to a powerful measure to suppress Chinese enterprises'imports and exports by foreign enterprises. Through studying U.S.A.'s approach, we get the idea that expanding the scope of application of patent exhaustion in China is benefit to improve the ability of our enterprises to respond to patent infringement litigation and protect the legal rights of our enterprises.In this paper, the author starts with the introduce of content of patent rights, development history and essence of patent exhaustion, through the analysis of the precedents to introduce the patent exhaustion system in America, and reach a conclusion that the scope of patent exhaustion is expanded when the patented product or components embodies the essential features of the patent and have no other noninfringing uses, suggest that patent exhaustion and implied license are two both linked and differentiated principles in American patent infringement litigation, summarize the conditions when sale restrictions can exclude the application of patent exhaustion in America, summarize the applicable conditions of patent exhaustion in China and problems through analysising the legislative and judicial practice in China, put forward some proposals to the legislation in our country.