Research On The Determination Of The Same Or Equivalent Functionality Features In Patent Infringement Disputes

Functionality features are technical features described in terms of function or effect,not in terms of structure,components,conditions or the chain of relationships between them.The popularity of functionality features is due to the needs of technological development and the need for rights holders to obtain a greater scope of rights protection.With the increase in the use of functionality features,patent infringement disputes have gradually increased.Studying the same or equivalent features of functionality features in patent infringement will help to better balance the rights of patentees and social welfare,and promote technological progress and economic and social development.In terms of legislation,in the patent grant stage,the Patent Examination Guidelines stipulate that the content of functionality features includes all technical means that can achieve the function or effect;in the stage of patent infringement determination,the judicial interpretation stipulates that the content of functional features only includes the same and equivalent technical means described in the specification and drawings to achieve the function or effect.Due to the differences in the above interpretation rules,it may lead to problems such as affecting the predictability of the law and wasting judicial resources.Moreover,the term "equivalent" in the equivalent technical means in the judicial interpretation refers to the same function and effect,and basically the same means.This is different from the meaning of the term "equivalent" under the traditional doctrine of equivalents,and may overly narrow the protection scope of the patent right.Through retrieval and analysis of relevant cases in the past five years,it is found that in practice,there are mainly three problems in cases involving functionality features: first,existing or potential functionality features are ignored;second,the decomposition of functionality features is unreasonable;third,irrelevant Functionality features in the claims are removed.In order to solve the above problems,in legislation,the provisions of judicial interpretation should be uniformly adopted in the infringement stage,and the term "equivalent" of equivalent technical means adopts the same rules as the traditional equivalent principle.In practice,firstly,function and effect are not the only factors for understanding functional features;secondly,the decomposition of functionality features should be reasonable;finally,when comparing functionality features,all functionality features in the claims should be paid attention to.