Intellectual Property Protection Of The PCB Reverse Engineering

PCB is an important part of electronic information industry and it’s widely used in various fields of electronic information industry.In the process of research and design of PCB,layout-design is a vital link. This link needs to put in huge manpower and material resources.It also embodies the development of the designer’s creative work. With the increasing competition in the market, the PCB’s copy, plagiarism is also growing, the PCB reverse engineering problem is particularly prominent. PCB reverse engineering is mainly to reverse analysis and research of the existing PCB to get the new PCB layout design. In this process, inevitably, it will copy and imitate the original PCB layout design and trigger intellectual property rights disputes.As a matter of intellectual property, PCB layout design should be protected by related intellectual property law, but the existing intellectual property law does not make clear rules to it. At the same time,the legal status of PCB reverse engineering is not clearly.So the PCB reverse engineering concerns intellectual property rights infringement problems, it cannot have effective legal remedy in the judicial field.In order to promote the healthy development of PCB industry and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the original PCB designers,it is necessary to do further research on copyright infringement problems involved in PCB reverse engineering.Copyright infringement issue is the main intellectual property rights problem of PCB reverse engineering. This copy is different from copy in the sense of copyright law. It is divided into two kinds of copy, exact copy and part copy. There is no ready-made standard on the copy infringement. Only to use the experience of layout-designs of integrated circuits and the relevant judicial substantive similar standards investigate the degree of similarity between the new PCB layout design and the original one.In the condition of the main reason is that China’s existing laws on the protection level of deficient factors of PCB layout design, and there is no specific clarified the legal status of PCB reverse engineering and distinguish standard between a PCB reverse engineering and copy infringement. Based on the particularity of copyright infringement issue, two suggestions are put forward.The first is to promote self-discipline within the industry management, standardize the market order, establish a dispute mediation mechanism of the industry, and form a good atmosphere of intellectual property rights.The second is to perfect relevant legislation.In examining modified the existing law is difficult to meet the conditions of the protection of PCB,discusses the feasibility of separate legislation.And drawing on the useful experience of the abroad about reverse engineering, in the framework of separate legislation we must clear the scope of protection of PCB and establish the legal status of PCB reverse engineering and improve the PCB reverse engineering conditions.In dealing with copyright infringement, the same substantial standard will be adopted;the conventional design part of the public known will be filtered.Then other core infringement will be compared. All these measures can make the infringement more scientific and standardized.