The Study Of Patent And Doctrine Of Equivalent

The Supreme People’s Court issued a judicial decree in2001interpreting Art.59of the Patent Law in connection with definiteness of patent claims by stating that “anequivalent refers to that which in substantially the same way, performs substant iallythe same function, to achieve substantially the same result as the claimed feature, andthat equivalent may be achieved by a person having ordinary skill in the art withoutcreative efforts.” These standards, obviously, substantially follow the U.S. judiciallycreated F/W/R criteria, but the last one is really beside the question in that it is thestandard for deciding obviousness of an invention. Since the" doctrine of equivalents"have used for more than10years, whose effects have been questioned, challenged inthe Supreme Court trial, In2009several issues and retrial of Supreme Court cases aredescribed in this paper are reflected. However, the theoretical roots of the abovereality, are less involved in the study. The reason of "doctrine of equivalents" exists inthe patent system is not clear. This paper attempts to analyze the current "doctrine ofequivalents" connotation， And to judge the current criterion of the doctrine ofequivalents, and give an Outlook of the existing "doctrine of equivalents".