Resolutions For The Patent Thicket Obstacles

The patent system is assuming to take on the important mission of promotinginnovation since the date of its creation. However, with the steady growth of thequantities of patents, the inevitability of incentive effect to innovation that producedby patent system has been questioned, the increased problems of patent thicket andthe dilemma caused by that would be the best example for the reduction of incentiveeffect. The passive impact of the patent thicket dilemma has been increasinglyserious, specific embodied in the aspects of the rise costs of new technologyimplementation, the exacerbation of accumulation of the pending patent for patentadministrative institutions, the delay innovation of the cumulative technologyindustry and so on.Search to the bottom, in the aspect of objective, the arrival of the era ofcomplex technology makes the conflicts increasingly prominent betweentechnologies in different field of "integration" and technologies of "fragmentation"that patent rights had protected, and in the aspect of subjective, multi-national patentpolicies towards innovation products are all inclined to the patent expansion strategyof "powerful protection", and the enterprises which based on self-interestmaximization would take advantage of this "powerful protection" monopoly torestrict competition and seek additional incomes, plus the loopholes and difficultiesof patent examination system itself, all these reasons makes the rising speed ofpatent number out of step with the accumulative speed of the real innovationproducts, a lot of "trouble patent""junk patent" mixed among them, which makes thepatent rent increase greatly, and the patent system operation has faced the crisis ofout of the orbit of promoting innovation. In view of this, we need to make somemodification in the patent system to solve the problem of patent thicket, includingincrease the operability of the compulsory license system in China, improve patentexamination mechanism and control the increase of patent number in the cumulativetechnology field.