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Differences in Terminology Do Not Necessarily Mean a Component Lies outside the Scope of a Patent
The patent system grants a patentee proprietary and exclusive patent rights and adopts the "claim(s)" as a legal document for the public to understand the scope of protection. When the patent at issue is compared with the accused infringing product in a patent infringement dispute, it is necessary to confirm first whether both components have the same technical features so as to confirm whether one literally reads on the other.
However, when the patent at issue is compared with an accused infringing product, if the corresponding components are named differently (such as "plug" and "bolt"), can different terms be directly seen as different technical features and thus lead to the conclusion of "not literal reading"? According to the 2019-Min-Zhuan-Shang No. 45 Civil Judgment made by the Intellectual Property Court on October 15, 2020, when reviewing the relationship between the term "plug" and "bolt," the conclusion of "not literal reading" cannot be directly determined only because both belong to different components. Instead, it should be judged after the patent specifications and drawings are examined and the true meaning of the term "plug" conferred by the invention of the patent as a whole is investigated.
According to the aforementioned judgment, when making patent infringement judgments, scrutiny should not be limited to the literal meaning of the wording of the patent claim lest the limitations of literal expression narrow the scope of the patent. To understand the components of the patent, the specifications and drawings should be examined so as to investigate the true meaning of the term conferred to the overall invention of the patent. The so-called "same technical features" are classified into three categories: (1) the corresponding technical features of the patent claim and those of the accused infringing item are "exactly the same"; (2) "the difference lies merely in the wording or can be directly and unambiguously known"; and (3) "the technical features of the accused infringing item are subordinate to the corresponding technical features of the patent."
In this case, the court determined that, according to the understanding of a person having ordinary skill in the art, "plug" and "bolt" are different components, which obviously does not conform to the first and second categories mentioned above. As for the third category (i.e. superordinate/subordinate relationship), according to specifications in the Prior Art paragraph of the patent specification, the "plug" should refer to the same or similar components that can generally be released quickly and can be easily assembled and disassembled, whereas the "bolt" is used for the purpose of firm connection and sturdy fastening. The effects and functions of these two components are obviously different, and they do not constitute any superordinate/subordinate relationship conceptually. Therefore, the court ultimately determined that these two components do not constitute "literal reading," and the accused infringing product did not constitute patent infringement.