Research On Infringement Judgment Of Integrated Circuit Layout Design

The innovation and development of integrated circuit layout design is closely related to the development of integrated circuit industry.Although the development of integrated circuit industry in China started late,it has developed rapidly in recent years.At the same time,it also puts forward high requirements for the protection of intellectual property rights.The layout design of integrated circuit is different from the traditional intellectual property rights,which is a new type of human intellectual achievement.However,the object characteristics of its protection are similar to the protection of works,which requires originality,and the infringement rules are the same as copyright.Through case study,this paper analyzes the problems existing in the infringement judgment of integrated circuit layout design in China,which are mainly manifested in the inconsistency of exclusive right content carrier,unclear judgment standard of originality,and inconsistent application scale of "contact plus substantial similarity" infringement judgment rules.When is come to the topic of the confirmation of the content carrier of the exclusive right of integrated circuit layout design.There are three kinds of situations in judicial practice: Taking the layout presented by the paper drawing or copy as the carrier,taking the sample as the carrier of the exclusive right content,and taking the lithography mask as the carrier of the exclusive right content.When the information recorded in the carrier is inconsistent,priority should be given to confirm the right information recorded by administrative registration.When there are more than two carriers of the recorded information,the carrier of right protection should be confirmed.When is come to the topic of the identification of the originality of IC layout design.The originality of integrated circuit layout design needs to meet two basic conditions: one is the result of intellectual labor created by the creator,the other is that it does not belong to the recognized conventional design.In order to better judge the originality of integrated circuit layout design,we need to have a certain understanding and distinction of its creative height.With the help of the comparison between the creative height of works in the field of copyright and the invention creativity in the field of patent,and combined with the foreign standards for judging the originality of integrated circuit layout design,the judgment of originality should start from the following aspects,It needs to be appraised by professional appraisal institutions or by expert witnesses;Second,the judgment object of originality should start from the minimum protection range,that is,from the independent functional characteristics of the circuit;Third,we need to judge whether it is original or not from two aspects of "quality" and "quantity";Fourth,it needs to compare with the conventional design to judge.As an important rule to determine copyright infringement cases,the rule of "contact plus substantial similarity" is also applicable to the infringement cases of integrated circuit layout design.However,in the specific judicial practice,there are different standards of application.Therefore,it is necessary to sort out the specific determination methods and basic rules of substantial similarity,Firstly,the basic comparison methods of substantial similarity should be holistic method,decomposition method and abstract module layout method;Second,substantial similarity should not be judged by the percentage of similarity,but by the size of innovation space.