Application Study Of The Standard For Identifying The Equivalent Technical Features

Technical features equivalent standard is one of the core issues of the application of doctrine of equivalents. Although China has established application of the standard through related judicial interpretation issued by Supreme People’s court, due to the lack of the further definition of core conceptions and of the establishment of specific judgment elements, when dealing with patent infringement, justices in China remain divided on the analysis of the application of equivalent standard, thus the verdicts are difficult to be consistent. Therefore, It is necessary to do further study on the application of the standard both theoretically and practically in order to promote jugdement practice for better solutions to conflicts of interest.The overall framework of the thesis is as follows: First of all, at the starting point of typical cases in judicial practice, It analyzed the central issues reflected in cases and draws forth the legal analysis of the central issues and case study of the same kind. Then based on the above analysis, with a view to the need of China’s judicial practice, the specific suggestions are proposed about application of technical features equivalent standard. The thesis is divided into three parts.The first part is the summary of cases and derivation of central issues. After an brief introduction to the invention patent infringement “folded car frame” and its verdict, It generalized the central issues in application of technical features equivalent standard: the first one is specific application of the testing standard “method-function-result”(objective standard); the second one is the specific application of “obvious” standard(subjective standard),which is adopted by the ordinary technical personnel in the field; the third one is the definition of common application relation of these two standards.The second part is legal analysis to central issue. In this part, technical features equivalent standards between USA and Germany are comparatively analyzed at first, and that of China is estimated, then objective suggestions on China’s application of the standard are proposed theoretically. Afterwards combined with definition of related concepts and case study of the same kind, It makes an in-depth analysis and investigation to the objective standard and subjective standard of technical features equivalent standard, drawing an conclusion: the objective standard can be applied correctly only on the premise that the specific implications of “method, function, result” are defined, with the cognition of method being the hinge in application. The key of application of subjective standard lies in specifications of the concept “ordinary technical personnel in the field” and its cognition on the basis of the definition of the concept of subject and of standard between novelty and creativity; Only common application of subjective standard and objective standard can maintain the entirety of China’s technical features equivalent standard, thus making judgements in accordance with judicial interpretation spirit.The third part is application of technical features equivalent standard in China’s patent infringement judgement through this case. This part, on the basis of above content, proposes specific suggestions. To this thesis, the application of technical features equivalent standard is supposed to accord with emphasis on objective standard and objectification of subjective standard, adheres to the principle of common application of objective standard and subjective standard, and on the basis of full consideration to the need of judicial practice, establishes specific judgement items to strictly comply with doctrine of equivalence.