The Causes、Effects And Legal Regulations On "Questionable Patents"

The patent system is a major incentive for social innovation. The righteousness of the patent system is based on stimulating innovation and making up for the loss on inefficiency brought by monopoly with faster innovation. Since China introduced the patent system, our social innovation capacity significantly improved. However, there have been some problems, plus the number of people blind pursuit of patent deficiencies of the patent examination system lead to a lot of "questionable patents". The impact of "The questionable patents" on the interests of individuals and public interest aroused widespread concern.This thesis defines and categorizes the concept of "questionable patents" at the beginning. Then this essay concluded the causes how "questionable patents" are produed. The "questionable patents"are partly derived from the dysfunction of the patent system. Various factors must be taken into accout such as the competition of patent application the pursuit for the monopoly of the patent protection and the limited patent verification resources. As a result, a large number of inappropriately or illy authorized "questionable patents"have emerged. After this, this thesis elaborates the impact of "questionable patents " on the consumers’ welfare, fair competition, and technological innovation.The patent system in essence is to protect the exclusive rights when innovators occupy the market. This exclusive rights must be certified and accepted by a third party or an authority. However, the third party usually does not think highly of the validity of "questionable patents",and the "questionable patents" owner tries to make rights exclusive through opportunistic litigation and anti-compellation litigation. This is a harmful behavior of rent-seeking. Last but not least, this thesis conlude the legal arrangements taken against "questionable patents" and makes some recommendations for further improvements.