Study On Patent Protection Of Graphic User Interface Appearance Design

The development of Internet technology has produced an endless stream of hardware and software products that update and iterate rapidly.Both hardware and software products need to take graphical user interface as a tool to interact with users.With the emergence of Apple v.Samsung’s sky-high compensation case in 2012,the graphical user interface(GUI)came into people’s sight and caused a lot of legal disputes.After the revision of the Guidelines for Patent Examination in 2014,it was formally established that graphical user interfaces are protected by law in the form of design patents.The Guide to the Recognition of Patent Infringement in 2017,the Guide to the Handling of Administrative Judgments on Patent Infringement Disputes in 2019 and the revision of the Guide to Patent Examination in 2019 all involve the legal protection of graphical user interface.In the newly revised Patent Law in 2020,the partial design patent protection system is introduced for the first time in China.In this paper,the concept of graphical user interface is firstly explained by combining the literature collected first,and the characteristics and classification of graphical user interface are summarized.Then,the definition and other problems of the following products are analyzed and demonstrated by virtue of interaction design theory and functional design theory.Through the preliminary study on the legal protection of graphical user interface and the analysis and summary of cases in judicial practice,it is found that graphical user interface is difficult to be protected because it cannot meet the requirement of originality in Copyright Law.Because of the interactive characteristics of the graphical user interface,it cannot be protected by the Trademark Law.Because the design space of graphical user interface is limited,the protection of the Law against Unfair Competition is also limited.Therefore,we should seek the effective path of legal protection for the new object of graphical user interface.Secondly,based on a typical case--Qihu v.Jiangmin,the paper explores the practical dilemma of patent protection of graphical user interface design.It is found that the limitation of the scope of protection caused by the requirement of "taking product as carrier" in reality,the risk of patent examination and litigation caused by the non-standard application documents,the fuzzy standard of judging the subject in the confirmation of patent authorization and infringement judgment,and the legislative blank caused by the introduction of the partial design patent protection system.Thirdly,some suggestions are put forward to improve the patent protection of graphical user interface design,such as redefining the scope of "product" and "design",improving suggestions on patent application,and defining the criterion of judging subject,etc.Finally,this paper describes in detail the construction of the local design patent protection system,starting from the incentive mechanism of the local design patent protection system,discusses in detail the unification of the double identical and similar standards for the determination of patent infringement,as well as the adjustment of the principle of overall observation and comprehensive judgment under the new system.