Divided Infringement Of Multi-step Method Patent In America And The Implications To China

Along with the technology innovation, a growing number of communicationstechnology and cloud computing method patents have been granted. These methodpatents differ from the traditional method or product patents in that they need to becompleted by multi-party. Due to the comprehensive coverage doctrine in patentinfringement, in the case that multi-part participated in the completing of the patentedmethod, due to the absence of a single party to implement a complete technicalsolution, it will be difficult for the patentee to prove the existence of direct patentinfringement. However, the application of contributory infringement or lureinfringement faces plenty of difficult both in theory and in practice. There are manylegislative and judicial issues need to be explored and resolved. United States has amore mature judicial experience for the divided infringement of multi-step patent,while China in this regard has not established a sound legal frame. In view of above,I tried to sort out the rules of American jurisprudence and gives some insights andsuggestions to the multi-step divided patent infringement judgment in China.The main content of this paper is divided into three parts:The first chapter presents the plight of the judgment for multi-step patentinfringement. The author provides several Chinese patent examples to point out thespecificity in the judgment of multi-step method patent and explains why the theory of contributory infringement" Tort Liability Act" and the lure of infringement underthe theory can not be directly applied in multi-step method patent infringementjudgment, and the necessary to build the lure patent infringement system in OurCountry.Chapter II and Chapter III are the main innovations of this paper.The second chapter follows the timeline of U.S. jurisprudence, combing the casesissued since before1952till2012, and mainly analyzes the jurisprudence of thosehappened after the issue of1952U.S. Patent Law and the exploration of U.S. FederalCircuit Court rules regarding this matter. The author tries to study from those U.S.jurisprudences to explore suitable rule for the multi-step method patent infringementjudgment in our country.The third chapter is based on the status quo of China’s legislature, and proposedthe rule for judging the multi-step patent infringement case. The rule splits the dividedinfringements into two circumstances, i.e. the divided infringement involving relatedparties and the divided infringement involving innocent parties and proposed (1) thein the case of divided infringement involving related parties, the joint infringementtheory should be applied (2) when it comes to divided infringement involvinginnocent parties, the lure infringement theory should be applied. Even though thereis no direct infringement, as long as the lure party meets all of the requirements,he/she stills should be recognized as the infringer.The conclusion part makes a brief summary of the full text.