Equivalence (patent system)

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Equivalence is a term used to protect the scope of patents relating to products that have been modified compared to a patent.

Regulatory content

All major patent systems in the world dictate that the scope of protection of a patent is determined by its claims . Further developments have been developed through case law. Expressed in terms of infringement, it differentiates between direct and indirect patent infringement and, in direct patent infringement, between identical and equivalent patent infringement and partial protection.

In the case of an equivalent patent infringement, an attacked product has all the features of the respective patent claim either identically or in an equivalent manner. “Equivalent” in this context means “having the same effect”. The equivalent modification is not widely or generously permitted because, if generously permitted, it would conflict with the requirement of legal certainty. A modification is only recognized as an equivalent infringement if it results immediately for a person skilled in the art through simple considerations.

Demarcation

Another term referring to similarities is that of obviousness. However, it is not relevant in the infringement context, but rather for the question of the patentability of an invention within the scope of the inventive step criterion .

Sometimes members of a patent family are also referred to as "equivalents". This meaning also has nothing to do with the term from infringement law.

example

The question of whether one element is equivalent to another depends on the context. A nail can be equivalent to a screw when all that matters is shear forces. If, on the other hand, tensile forces also play a role, a nail cannot be equivalent to a screw, because a nail can absorb less tensile forces than a screw, so that it is not equivalent to it.

exception

A simply modified product is not considered to be infringing if it is not a patent-worthy invention compared to the prior art .

literature