The Application Of The Equivalent Principle In The Infringement Cases Of Inferior Technology

With the global scientific and technological level of progress, the number of patentinfringement cases is gradually increasing. In order to avoid legal responsibility, through researchon certain patented products, some enterprises find that it could create some products inferior topatented technology on technical features and effects by omitting or replacing the patent claims.There is big argument in our judicial practice that whether the above behavior or technical solutioncaused by for this behavior could be applied for the doctrine of equivalents to determine its patentinfringement dispute. So that, some verdict in patent infringement cases occur between the first andsecond instance conflicting situation, or some similar cases have different verdicts in differentcourts, which affect the judicial authority.Therefore, in order to solve the problems in our judicial practice regarding the application ofdoctrine of equivalents in the infringement cases of inferior technology, the author carried outrelevant research. This article is divided into the following three parts:The first part examines the concept of the doctrine of equivalents and the history of thedoctrine of equivalents in the major countries, with introduce the interpretation principle of patentright, analysis and comprehensive coverage of the principles of the doctrine of equivalents, theprior art defense principle and the principle of estoppels, and find out the methods of theapplication of doctrine of equivalents in patent infringement judgment.The second part, by analyzing the definition of deterioration of technology, the idea of thedefinition and classification of deterioration technology are introduced, and also introduced thetypical cases of deterioration of technology in our courts, and then comparatively study the viewsabroad on whether inferior technology constitute infringement.The third part, by logical analysis, the author presents the application of doctrine ofequivalents in an alternative type of inferior technology infringement cases, and the opinions thatomit type deterioration technology and hybrid technology can not apply the doctrine of equivalents.Meanwhile, the author analyzes three methods of determination of deterioration technologyinfringement cases, and thinks that in patent infringement cases, four steps should be followed inthe judgment of replacing type of deterioration technology. For the omit type of deterioration oftechnology, it should apply the principle of universal coverage determination, while for the hybriddeterioration of technology, there is no need to analyze the impact towards the infringementjudgment by its changing technical characteristics, which could refer to the method for determiningof the omitted type of deterioration of technology, with analysis on related cases.