Research On The Standard Of Examination For Business Method Patent

The examination standards for business method patents are still in constant adjustment and improvement in various countries,with differences and changes.Measures such as invigorating the country through science and technology have led to the rapid development of science and technology in China,followed by the rapid rise of e-commerce and other industries.In addition,the development of 5G technology and Internet of things and other technologies has been integrated into the business scope,making business methods take off.It is urgent to urge the existing laws and regulations to provide patent protection for the business method innovation of such new technologies.In this context,the development of business method patents in China is still in its infancy.The patentability has been affirmed,but the examination standard is still in the exploratory stage.Specifically,the legal level has not yet defined the examination standards for business method patents.In practice,the overall examination standards are still measured by the examination rules for general patent applications.There is a large room for improvement in improving legal norms and refining examination rules.This paper analyzes the phased development of China’s business method patent examination standards,explores the difficulties in the application of China’s current examination standards,and draws lessons from the examination practice of foreign legislatures and judicial precedents on business method patents.The United States,as a leader,has constantly revised its review standards in the form of precedents,from the initial "business method exclusion principle" to the practical standard of "useful,specific and practical effects",to the technical standard of "machine or conversion testing method",and then to the "de standardization" trend;The review standards of EU and Japan focus on technical characteristics.Based on the above analysis of the practice of business method patent examination,the innovation of this paper is that the two aspects of the business method patent examination standard,namely,the object eligibility examination standard and the substantive examination standard,are presented with the help of two typical cases,which are specific and clear,and it is easy to analyze the controversial points and difficulties in the examination of these two aspects at the legal level;Then,two controversial points and difficulties of "technical proposal" review judgment and "creative" review judgment are extracted,analyzed through typical cases,compared with foreign review standards for reference,and specific suggestions are given to refine the object eligibility review standards and optimize the substantive review standards.It also puts forward some suggestions on perfecting the legal norms of China’s commercial party patent examination standards.The full text covers four parts: the first part introduces the current situation and development of China’s business method patent examination standards;In the second part,the author makes a legal analysis of the controversial focus issues in the application of the examination standards for business method patents in China by using typical cases;The third part combs the legislation and judicial practice of business method patent examination standards in foreign countries and regions,and summarizes the experience;The fourth part is the countermeasures and suggestions to improve the examination standards of business method patents in China.