On The Literal Interpretation Of Patent Claims

The claims in patent documents are at the core in defining the scope of patent protection,and are the main basis for defining the technical features of inventions,publicizing the scope of patent rights to the public,and determining whether infringement has been caused.But for such an important and difficult issue,the rules of every country are almost "rude" at the statutory level.There is only one principle clause about the scope of patent protection in the patent law of our country,which only provides a general direction guidance from the perspective of the scope of language carrier,while the determination of how to use claims to delimit the boundary of rights,the rules,procedures,steps,the extent of using the description and drawings to explain claims and the meaning of interpretation is not mentioned.The literal interpretation of claims is the most important thing in the process of determining the scope of patent protection.This paper focuses on the principles,rules and typical cases of the literal interpretation of claims established in the practice of various countries,and demonstrates and summarizes them in theory.The first part of the article is the basis of the justification of the literal interpretation of claims.The first is to explain the justification of the literal interpretation of the claim from three aspects:the inherent fuzziness of the language,the lag of the language and the deviation of the language understanding.The second is to explain the justification of the literal interpretation of the claim from four aspects:information cost of patent right,the relationship between semantics,context and information cost.The third is to explain the methodology of the literal interpretation of claims from the perspective of text first interpretation and pre-understanding of technical background.The second part of the article is about the research of the materials of the literal interpretation of the claims.One is to explore the similarities and differences in the scope of relevant interpretation materials at home and abroad,and analyze and demonstrate its rationality.The other is to explore the division of different interpretation materials at home and abroad,and analyze the rationality of different priority of interpretation materials.The third part of the article is about the research of the premise and the demarcation point of time of the literal interpretation of the claim.First,by comparing the principles and rules about the timing of interpretation established by several typical countries in practice,and combining with cases to demonstrate whether there is a premise for interpretation.The second is to explore the demarcation point of time that should be selected for the interpretation of the meaning of the language and characters of the claims and analyze their rationality.The fourth part of the article is about the research on the literal interpretation method of the claims.To explore the operation rules in practice from three perspectives:special definition interpretation,common meaning interpretation and the interpretation which corresponds to the purpose of the invention,and then to demonstrate rationality and summary based on case.