The Patent System Of International Research

In the age of knowledge economy, the globalization of the economy brings the international harmonization of rules on intellectual property rights. Since patent is an important element of the intellectual property systems, the international harmonization of the patent system is inevitable.After the establishment of Paris Convention in 1883, developed countries has been pushed the international harmonization process of patent system in sustained effort. From establishing certain common standards of patent protection to simplifying the procedure and formality of patent application and grant, developed countries are endeavoring to harmonize the substantive patent law for the purpose of building global unified patent system. The Patent Cooperation Treaty provides harmonization on procedural aspects, while the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) involves both substantive and procedural rules. But the minimum requirement in TRIPS Agreement is not enough for developed countries, the Substantive Patent Law Treaty has been put forward for establishing uniform substantive patent law Standards and patent mutual acknowledge system, aiming at substantive harmonization for global patent system. It is quite difficult to formulate one world patent substantive law because of big different circumstances in different countries concerning their development level of technology and economy. There are large amounts of legal issues involved. This paper addresses some key issues which are quite controversial and have been discussed regularly: firstly, the "technical" issues discussed mostly among developed countries such as the requirement of obtaining patent, in particular, novelty, inventive step, and industrial applicability, patentable subject matter concerning bio-technology, computer software, business method, and interpretation of claims; secondly, some "development" issues proposed by developing countries, but opposed strongly by some developed countries, such as exceptions to patentability, disclosure of the origin of genetic resources and traditional knowledge.It is impossible to simply stop the patent harmonization process though it might be harm to the interests of developing countries. The developing countries should coordinate and active positively to including the development issues into the discussion of the SPLT, preserving the flexibility as much as possible to national patent system during international negotiation. This paper examines strategies China should take to cope with the patent international harmonization process, such as rules about conditions of granting patent, compulsory license, the need to set up legal system to protect genetic resources and traditional knowledge, regulating abuse of patent right practices. Among others, we need to speed up the construction of automatic system for patent application and searching, expand investment on technology innovation, work out and enforce national intellectual property strategy, improve the national ability of creation, well-prepared for the future international patent system harmonization.