申請專利範圍之更正及其通知程序之實證研究

Abstract

申請專利範圍之更正最常出於舉發程序中，當專利權人為了對抗先前技術，保護專利權有效性所進行的手段。由於申請專利範圍更正之合法性會相當程度地影響舉發程序之勝敗，因此往往成為舉發人及被舉發人爭執的焦點。申請專利範圍之更正雖分別規定於專利法第64條及專利審查基準第2篇第6章第2節，然現有更正規定仍充滿灰色地帶，審查人員對於申請專利範圍更正之合法性判斷具有很大的裁量權，而造成審查上的高度不確定性。另一個經常引發爭議的情形在於申請專利範圍更正之門檻過高，且未完善界定「實質變更申請專利範圍」之定義。本文嘗試衡量如何設計專利更正制度以符合公示原則及專利權人的利益。在實證研究上，本文綜合整理台北高等行政法院及智慧財產法院對申請專利範圍更正之判決，利用該些案例以同時呈現出現行實務存在的矛盾和未解之處。本文另就智慧財產局近年來舉發審查時對申請專利範圍的更正進行實證分析，以統計實務上可能出現的申請專利範圍更正之類型，利用該些案例以同時呈現出現行實務存在的矛盾和未解之處。本文並分析日本專利審查實務，藉以和我國實務進行比對。就現行實務對申請專利範圍更正之判斷標準，幾乎都以專利審查基準為依歸，因此認為若能在專利法修正時直接將立法目的明訂於法條內，當有助於專利審查基準的更明確化。本文基於公眾利益和專利權人間的衡平原則，針對現行實務存在的矛盾和未解之處，提出個人之見解，以作為專利法及專利審查基準修正之參考。

When a patentee intends to fight against prior arts, protecting his/her patent right in a cancellation action, he/her usually files a claim amendment to narrow down the claim scope to avoid overlapping with the prior arts. Because granting a request for claim amendment or not significantly affect the decision of the cancellation action, both parties involving the cancellation action must pay full attention on this procedure. However, although the rules about claim amendment are stipulated in Article 64 of Patent Law and Chapter 6, Paragraph 2 of Patent Examination Guideline, such rules are still ambiguous and leave a lot of grey zones to be filled. For example, a frequently argued question is the definition of substantially changing the claim scope. In this thesis, the author tries to balance the interests between the public who trusts the public notice of an issued patent and the patentee. In empirical studies, the author analyzes the recent decisions of Taipei Administrative High Court and Intellectual Property Court, and cancellation actions of Intellectual Property Office. Based on these statistic data, the author intends to disclose the discrepancy of current patent practice, and find out a principle of equity to balance the interests of both parties in the cancellation action.