Research On Patent Infringement Of Automobile Design

As an easy-to-use and highly basic means of land transportation,automobiles have a high status in the national economy and daily life.Whether the exterior design of a car meets the needs of consumers has an important influence on its sales volume.In order to better protect their best-selling car models,automobile enterprises have brought suit against competitors for appearance design infringement,which has become an important means of safeguarding rights and market competition.It has important research value.In addition to the introduction and conclusion,this paper is divided into five chapters.The first chapter studies the present situation of our country's automobile appearance design,mainly including the current application status of our country's automobile appearance design patent and the present situation of our country's automobile appearance design patent infringement.At present,the application volume of automobile exterior design in China is gradually increasing,but due to its late start and the influence of the "market for technology" policy,there is still a certain gap between China and foreign countries.In recent years,a series of automobile design infringement cases have taken place.The focus of these design infringement disputes are:the identification of general consumers in similarity judgment,functional judgment,and defense reasons for infringement,etc.Around the focus of infringement judgment,the second chapter mainly studies the "general consumer" standard.At present,our country adopts the standard of"general consumer" to judge the infringement of appearance design."General consumer" is a subject of legal fiction,representing a level of knowledge and cognitive ability.Therefore,the application of this standard needs specific analysis of specific problems for the "general consumers" of a specific product.For the automotive field,first of all,"ordinary consumers" should know the functions and uses of certain types of automotive products.Secondly,the general consumers should know the structural composition or layout of automobile products,as well as the functions and design features of the main components.Thirdly,"ordinary consumers"should know all kinds of factors that affect the overall visual effect,such as the design space of such products,and have certain cognitive ability to the influence weight of different design features on the overall visual effect.The third chapter analyzes the application of functional principles.Functionality means that the appearance of a product is only based on the functional needs of the product,not the decorative needs.It refers to technical function,not aesthetic function.It is a legal function,not a factual function.If functional features are only defined as the type of "function only limited",the scope of functional features will be greatly limited,and other types of functional features will be included in the scope of protection,so it is necessary to expand the type and scope of functional features.The fourth chapter studies the defense strategy of automobile design infringement lawsuit.There are three main defenses of infringement involved in automobile appearance design cases:existing design defenses and legitimate source defenses;As well as raising an invalid plea.Existing designs refer to designs known to the public before the date of filing of the patent.Taking the accused infringing products as the comparison center in the existing design defense is easy to protect the appearance design that does not meet the substantive authorization conditions.Therefore,it is reasonable to take the existing design as the comparison center.Legal source defense means that the seller of the design can prove that the products he sells are obtained at a reasonable price and through formal market channels.Legal source is a factor that determines that the seller of automobile appearance design is not at fault subjectively.Therefore,legal source does not necessarily exempt the seller from liability for compensation.The fifth chapter puts forward suggestions on how to improve the protection of exterior design for Chinese automobile enterprises.For the automobile enterprises,the results of the appearance design of the enterprise shall be applied in time to avoid loss of novelty and shall be kept confidential at the same time.In terms of litigation,domestic automobile enterprises should make full use of the invalid design system and existing technology defense to actively participate in litigation against foreign automobile enterprises.In the aspect of self-construction,we should increase investment to enhance our appearance design level and establish an intellectual property management system suitable for ourselves.Secondly,in the construction of exterior design system,the law should raise the standard of ordinary consumers and adopt objective judgment methods to consider whether there is an alternative scheme in the determination of functional characteristics.