專利品質的司法控制

Patent Quality Controlled by Judiciary

專利申請量和授權量急劇增長，大大超出產業的創新規模，使專利權的質量備受質疑。在不同的專利改革方案中，伯克－萊姆利方案強調法院在控制專利質量方面的作用，並認為它最具效率。我國法院在侵權之訴中以不侵權抗辯為手段，以權利要求的解釋為媒介，間接處理專利權效力爭議，擴大了法院審查專利權效力的權力，是中國版的伯克－萊姆利方案。當然，法院間接處理專利權效力的範圍應限於明顯無效的情形。這一路徑為最高人民法院的判例所確認，也為專利法上現有的技術（設計）抗辯所承認。此外，法院依行政訴訟法審查專利效力，處理的數量遠遠少於有效專利、民事爭議以及適用專利無效宣告行政程式的數量，故有必要予以提升。There are almost unanimous agreements to doubt the patent quality because of the numbers of patent application and patent grant which exceed the scale of industry innovation. Although various ways to address this problem have been proposed by policymakers and scholars, the solution proposed by Professor Burk nd Lemley emphasizes the important role of judiciary, which is the best efficient path for improving patent quality. Chinese edition of Burk-Lemley solution holds that courts, construing patent claims during patent civil lawsuit, shall focus on noninfringement intead of invaliding patent directly. This solution, recognized by the cases under Supreme People's Court and defense of prior art under patent law, has extended power of Chinese judiciary, and also shall be limited to specific situation which has evident mistakes for granting patent. In China, special courts declare patent invalidity through administrative lawsuit, and this procedure shall be improved because of the numbers of such lawsuit less than the number of valid patent, civil lawsuit and administrative review of patent.