A Study On Legal Protection Of Integrated Circuit Layout Design

As one of the fastest growing and the most dynamic areas of technology, theintegrated circuit technology has become a basis of the information industry. Theprotection of intellectual property rights on integrated circuits is a power to make thedevelopment of integrated circuit technology continuously. Some developed countriessuch as the United States, Japan and the European Union has legislated to protect theintellectual property right of the integrated circuit technology. Nowadays, thedevelopment of more advanced integrated circuits has become a focus of manynational manufacturers, and the improvement of the legal protection of integratedcircuit layout design has also become a focus of many governments. Also, for theneed of economic development and accession to the WTO, the importance of theprotection of intellectual property is rising, which contributes to the perfection ofChina’s intellectual property legislation. In order to protect the intellectual propertyright of the integrated circuit technology and encourage the innovation, the counciladopted the “Regulations on the Protection of Layout Designs of IntegratedCircuits”on the36thexecutive meeting on March28th,2001and put it into effect fromOctober1st,2001. At the same time, the national intellectual property office published“Protection of Integrated Circuit Layout Designs Regulations Implementing Rules”on September18th,2001and put it into effect from October1st,2001. At present, theprotection of integrated circuit layout design based on these two legal documents.However, after ten years of judicial practice, some problems in the “Regulations onProtection of Layout Designs of Integrated Circuits” gradually shows out. Theseexisting problems are pending to be resolved through the legislative perfection. Thethesis take the legal protection of integrated circuit layout design as a subject and thecomparative analysis of applications as a method and research on the presentlegislative situation, the protection mode and the potential improvement ofintellectual property right of the integrated circuit technology from aspects of thetheory and the practice perspectively. Specifically, the logical thinking and the textual structure are as follows:Firstly, this thesis describes general features of layout designs of integratedcircuits, and discusses, with judicial practice, the difficulties in protecting layoutdesigns of integrated circuits with copyright, patent or commercial secret protection.This paper claims that conventional ways of intellectual property rights protectioncannot effectively protect intellectual property right of layout designs of integratedcircuits, and that it is necessary to create customized legislations for layout designsof integrated circuits.Secondly, through an investigation of comparative law on layout designs ofintegrated circuits, this thesis introduces the intellectual property rights protection oflayout designs of integrated circuits in America, Japan and the European Union.Through comparison, this paper summaries the differences between them andanalyzes their pros and cons.Thirdly, through the description of the situation of layout designs of integratedcircuits in China, and the analysis on classical infringement of the intellectualproperty right of layout designs of integrated circuits, point out the problems in thisfield in China.At last, I proposed an amendment on the legislation of the protection of layoutdesigns of integrated circuits after deeply study on the judicial practice, which mainlyfocuses on the problems of “Regulations on the Protection of Layout Designs ofIntegrated Circuits”, such as too general, more concern about conceptions and payless attention to practice. Based on these recommendations, I suggest improve thesystem within two aspects, procedure and substantial. Also, we could enhance thelegislation hierarchy of layout designs of integrated circuits.