I. The Problem
Patent agency work has become an important work in the era of knowledge-based economy, and its development prospects have been affirmed by many knowledgeable people, but the essence of the patent agency work is far from obtaining a clear understanding. In particular, the patent agency industry is still in a relatively early stage, most practitioners have not yet clearly grasp the characteristics of the patent agent and the role of the positioning, resulting in many inventors and applicants generally misinterpretation of the work of the agent. Many inventors think that the work of the patent agent is only to reorganize the submission, and do not recognize the significance of the agent's work; there are also some inventors who are not willing to cooperate with the agent to provide materials, and think that the agent should collect the materials by himself. These situations are related to the misunderstanding of the agent's work. For this reason, this paper examines the work of patent agents from the perspective of information product production, expecting to obtain a clear positioning of patent agents and achieve the purpose of clearing up the misunderstandings of all parties related to the work of agents. This paper is also expected to provide a new perspective on the work of patent agency for peers.
The essence of the patent agency industry is a kind of information processing industry
There are many kinds of patent agent's work, mainly including patent writing, invalidation of patents, with lawyers to represent the patent infringement cases, etc., of which, the most basic work is still the writing of the patent documents, and the other work is often an extension of this work.
In patent drafting, the agent first needs to obtain the relevant technical submission, and then according to the technical submission for drafting. The final product he or she obtains is a patent document that is written and filed.
From the above work process, it can be seen that the main work of the patent agent is to process the information in the technical submission into another form of information, i.e., patent documents. Patent agent's work from the beginning of contact with the information, to the final product is still the product of the form of information. This process shows that the patent agency industry is essentially an information processing industry, in which the raw material of information processing is the inventor's invention idea embodied in the submission; the final product is the patent application document. From the perspective of information processing, the so-called patent application document is a specific form of information product obtained through the collection and processing of information related to the inventor's technical ideas. In other words, the process of obtaining patent documents is the process of collecting and processing information.
In fact, the information processing industry is a fairly common industrial model in the information society. Its essence is to collect, integrate and package information to produce various types of information products for consumption by the information audience. These information products can provide the information audience with knowledge of value to them, or obtain information, generate pleasure and so on.
In terms of the patent agency industry, the products of this information processing industry have their own characteristics. This information product is, first of all, a legal document that ultimately needs to be made public, which can be declared for the applicant to determine the scope of protection covered by the patent, so as to enable him to obtain the expected economic benefits. For this reason, this patent document needs to go through a multifaceted **** with the efforts in order to clearly express the applicant's intention and comply with the provisions of the Patent Law, and ultimately achieve the multiple purposes of protecting the applicant's intellectual property rights, reasonably defining the scope of its rights to the public, as well as giving others sufficient technical information.
Three, the process of patent writing including technical submission writing and patent document writing two basic links
The processing of any patent product needs to go through the following two basic processes: collection of information, collection of information obtained from the information for its product-oriented processing of the target. The former is known as the information collection-oriented processing, the latter for the purpose of information processing. The former highlights the collection of information, the requirements of accuracy, completeness; the latter highlights the purpose of information processing, the requirements that can accurately and completely convey the content of the information, but also to the processing of the purpose as a guide to the form of the information for the collation, combination, deletion, abstraction, generalization, the process, and often need to reveal the buried in the original information materials have not been clearly expressed in the implied information.
For the production and processing of patent documents, because the information to be processed is the original technical program that exists in the inventor, which must be expressed in a certain way in order to be known and utilized by the patent agent, and this process is irreplaceable under normal circumstances. Therefore, the patent document as an information product must have the original information embryo in order to be the final processing of molding, this embryo is generally manifested in the patent submission. Patent submission is in the process of processing towards the collection of information obtained in the intermediate products, which itself does not have the legal and logical nature of the patent document, but it must indicate the true content of the original information. In order to achieve this purpose, it itself also requires a certain logic, the purpose of this logic is to serve for the complete and accurate representation of information, and its purpose is to prevent the information from being misunderstood in the subsequent processing.
In summary, the patent writing process includes two independent and interconnected steps, the first step is oriented towards the processing of information collection, the specific product is the technical submission; the second step is oriented towards the processing of information products, the specific product is to submit to the Patent Office of the patent document.
Four, writing a patent submission and writing the similarity of patent documents
1, are required to information, accurate, logical, and technical submission and patent specification has the same narrative logic
For the technical submission and patent documents, the most basic **** the same characteristics are designed to convey technical information. This determines that it has different characteristics from other types of information processing. Some forms of information processing does not have to emphasize the information is full, accurate and logical, for example, the production of literary works can be derived from life, higher than life, and even emphasize the authenticity of the report of the literature also has obvious traces of literary processing, and its information in the transmission process does not need to be very rigorous. However, for the transmission of technical information, its full and accurate is the basic requirement, a technical program is not allowed and impossible to deliberately fabricate. Of course, relative to the actual technical practice, may also wish to make a number of idealized treatment, but this idealization is based on strict technical logic, is never arbitrary.
For the technical submission and patent specification, need to be around the *** the same logic of the main line of narration, that is, the defects of the prior art, the solution to the defects of the technical program, the effect of the technical program. The reason for the above *** same narrative logic is that both are for the *** same purpose of information processing, that is, both need to provide the basic information so that the patent may be granted, this *** same purpose determines the two have basically the same narrative logic.
2, its ultimate purpose is to obtain good quality patent documents
Whether the technical submissions or patent documents, the writing process is expected to obtain the patent service, the final product is the form of processing is completed and expect to be able to pass the examiner's rigorous examination and ultimately obtain the authorization of the patent documents. Both serve the purpose of obtaining a good patent document. This is the root of all relevance between the two.
3, whether the final document reflects the patent applicant's conception necessarily depends on the superposition of the two information processing level, is the relationship between
patent documents, that is, the final submission to the patent office and even through the final examination of the document, the final quality of the high and low depends on the superposition of the two information processing level, is the relationship between the two. This is due to the fact that the information processing has coherence, the source of information if there is a problem will cause misunderstanding, and ultimately the whole product of information processing into the wrong way. Considering that the patent attorney is a specially trained information processor, although it is impossible for the patent attorney to carry out the first information processing, the patent attorney has an unshirkable responsibility to provide guidance on the first information processing; and even through the communication with the inventor, he or she can keenly find out the difference between the patent submission and the inventor's original intention, and help the inventor to supplement and perfect the product of the first information processing. -Technical Proposal. For companies with a large number of patent applications, it is the best choice to train patent interpreters specializing in writing submissions. The role of these patent interpreters is more oriented to the full mastery and accurate understanding of technical information, and they have basic training in patent logic, so they can participate in the development of the technology directly, and obtain complete and accurate technical information during the process, which will enable them to obtain a higher-quality technical submission, and make the whole process of processing patent documents have a high quality. So that the whole process of patent documents have a good start.
Fifth, the writing of the patent submission and the writing of patent documents and differentiation
1, the basic purpose is different.
Despite the patent submission and patent documents are ultimately to obtain a good patent documents, however, the two still have different basic purposes.
For the writing of the submission, its basic purpose is to be able to accurately and completely express its technical information. It emphasizes the completeness and accuracy of the information, and not only needs to provide the information of the technical scheme, but also requires the provision of relevant background technical information, so that the patent agent can accurately grasp the point of invention.
The basic purpose of writing patent documents, in its most basic aspect, is to obtain legal documents that comply with legal requirements, and, at the same time, to fulfill the applicant's need for legal protection of his invention. Therefore, the patent documents emphasize the legal legitimacy and help the applicant to achieve the purpose of protection. These rely on how the agent accurately grasps the substance of the relevant technical content obtained from the technical submission, and distinguishes and relates it to the prior art, and provides the applicant with a reasonable orientation of the scope of protection.
2, read different objects.
The technical submission of the reading object is very single, generally only the patent agent. Patent agent on the one hand, and the inventor's long-term technical submission to deal with, therefore, has a high level of understanding; on the other hand, the current division of labor in the patent agency industry is not possible to each patent agent has a clear technical field, which causes the agent of the field of knowledge is not necessarily very rich, which requires the technical submission of the technical background of the relevant technical background has some in-depth explanation, so that the agent quickly into the relevant context, so that the agent to the relevant context of the situation. So that the agent quickly into the relevant situation, so that it quickly establish with the inventor's *** same context.
Compared with technical briefs, patent documents are read by a wide range of audiences, including examiners, review boards, relevant technical personnel in the field, competitors, judges, etc. Each category of audience has its own knowledge structure and understanding of the technical background of the inventor. The knowledge structure and familiarity with the relevant fields of each type of object are very different, and all have different roles and different perspectives on patent documents. A patent document that plays an actual role must be able to pass the test of these readers' different perspectives, which makes writing patent documents a highly technical work. A patent agent is often more than three years of patent agency work, and has a certain amount of invalidation, infringement of litigation experience, experienced on their own documents written from different perspectives of thinking, to become a real expert, which is also the difficulty of the patent agency work.
3, the nature of the two documents are different
Technical submission is a relatively simple technical documents, although this document also needs to have a certain patent logic support, but its main purpose is to respond to the technical content. Patent documents are on the basis of the former, further processing of technical and legal documents; patent documents need to be extracted from the technical submission of the basic technical ideas, and put it in the context of the overall development of technology, to determine the angle and scope of its possible protection, and on this basis, to extract the appropriate claims. The above process puts forward comprehensive quality requirements for the writers, i.e., they need to be able to fully understand the patented technology, and they also need to have a very strong understanding of the patent law, and be able to appropriately think about the details of the patent documents from the perspectives of patent granting, invalidation, and infringement litigation. The above qualities need to be acquired through long-term training, while the inventor's ability to write a submission may be competent after simple training in patent logic.
4. The writers are different.
Technical submissions are generally written by the inventor, they generally have a deep and comprehensive grasp of the technical neighborhood, with a jumping mindset. Patent agents need to contact a variety of technical fields, their understanding of each technical neighborhood is not comparable to the inventor, however, qualified patent agents need to have a relatively strong logical thinking ability, and after the study of the patent law, from the patent authorization, invalidation, infringement litigation from a variety of perspectives to properly think about how to write a patent application documents. Patent attorney also needs to have a high level of writing and communication skills, which enable him/her to better grasp the basic logic of the basic information provided in the submission and express it in an appropriate form, and at the same time, also be able to communicate with the inventor in the process of writing the submission for certain guidance; the above mentioned abilities are not obtained after simple training. The value of patent attorneys in patent applications is recognized by all countries with patent systems for the above reasons. In the whole process of patent drafting, the patent attorney needs to realize that he/she is serving for the inventor and must carry out his/her work strictly according to the basic information provided by the inventor; on the other hand, he/she also needs to realize his/her active position in the whole process of information processing, and should give certain guidance to the inventor in the drafting of the submission. For the inventor, should understand the value of the agent's work, respect for his work experience, and realize that all the agent's work from the basic technical information provided by the inventor, can not expect the patent agent can be as familiar with the technical neighborhood and their own, should patiently answer the questions raised by the patent attorney, and in most cases, should be in accordance with the patent agent's guidance on the submission for supplementation and modification.
Sixth, the patent agent in the patent writing the main information processing
Although the patent agent's work from the patent submission, but does not mean that the patent agent in the information processing can not be creative labor, in fact, the patent agent also need to carry out a large number of creative line of labor, in particular, is the need to take a variety of Information processing methods, on the basis of the original material, so that the information to a new look in front of people. The main information processing methods used by the patent attorney are as follows:
1) Refinement. That is, from the existing technical information summarized to obtain the core of technical ideas. This work is very important, the inventor to provide a number of related technical solutions, what is the essence, what is the core contribution to the prior art, need to be fully understood on the basis of the refinement, summarize the really important core ideas. This is actually a reprocessing of the information provided in the inventor's submission, and the refined content may be able to discover the information contained in the inventor's technical submission, but not clearly expressed. This work is also the place where the core value of the agent is fully realized. Excellent agent can sometimes give the inventor a sense than the inventor's own understanding of the technology, in fact, the agent's understanding of the technology beyond the inventor, but the ability to refine the information to help the inventor to grasp the inventor's own not fully aware of the technical core.
2) Additions. When the agent refines the core idea in the submission, often found that the original submission of the material provided in the original submission can not fully support these refined technical ideas, for this reason, the patent attorney needs to be in a variety of ways to add to the information. One of the main ways is to systematically ask the inventor for the content that needs to be added, for this reason, the patent attorney needs to explain the purpose to the inventor, and obtain the inventor's understanding of the cooperation. In addition, patent attorneys are often required to utilize their own technical knowledge as well as to obtain relevant technical knowledge from various sources by means of internet searches.
3) Abridgement. Patent attorneys in the refinement of the basis, generally will find that some of the contents of the technical submission is not related to the subject matter of the idea, there may be a need to delete the branches and leaves, to avoid irrelevant content interferes with the clear logic of the main line. Of course, this step is the need to be more cautious, to avoid the loss of technical information.
4) Deformation. Patent attorneys often need to be based on the understanding of the technical program, combined with the legal requirements of patent writing, the existing technical program to show another face. In particular, some tend to intellectual activity rules of the patent, the need for patent agents to take measures to dig out the technical content behind the technical submission, change its external appearance, so that it is shown in the form of technology. For example, the treatment of patents for business methods.
Seven, how to avoid information distortion
Information processing, there are a variety of problems affecting the quality of information processing, these problems are related to the ability of the information processor, it is not possible to discuss these problems in the patent document writing work to solve the problem, the following only on the distortion of the information involved in the patent attorney and the inventor of the problem of two aspects of a simple discussion.
Information distortion is one of the main problems in the process of information processing, in the work of the patent agent, information distortion involves the process of information transfer between the inventor and the patent attorney, it is relatively easy to appear, but after taking appropriate measures, it is also relatively easy to solve the problem.
Information distortion includes information being omitted and misinterpreted. In the process of patent drafting, the differences in knowledge background between the agent and the inventor often tend to cause differences in understanding between the two parties, as well as inaccurate presentation of information. Misinterpretation of information is very easy to occur when there are specious contents in the submission provided by the inventor. For this problem, the following measures can be taken to obtain a better solution.
1) Provide sufficient intellectual background information. This is to make up for the difference in intellectual background between the two parties. The inventor needs to provide in the patent submission not only the technical program, but also often to provide the relevant technical background, in order to quickly bring the agent into the core issues, to help him or her understand the technical program without bias.
2) The use of strict logical reasoning for information transfer. Logic is a rigorous, stable way of information transfer, can make up for the knowledge background varies from person to person. The use of rigorous, written definition of technical concepts and logical reasoning steps can avoid misunderstanding between the two sides. The inventor adopts this way of writing the submission, which is convenient for the agent to find out the problematic links; if the logic of the submission written by the inventor is not rigorous, and the thinking is jumpy, the agent is not easy to understand, and it is even less easy to find out which aspect of the problem exists. Similarly, the agent's patent documents if the logic of meticulous, but also easy for inventors to find problems in the audit.
3) Adequate and effective communication. Through the inventor and the agent of the two sides of the timely communication of information, can make up for the differences in knowledge between the two sides, to obtain the effect of complementing each other, and can correct the obvious understanding of the differences, errors; this requires both sides can fully understand and respect each other in the formation process of the patent document status, so as to take the mutual cooperation rather than confrontation, and actively engage in frank exchanges.
VIII. Summarizing
Understanding and viewing the patent document writing work as an information processing process helps the agency industry to understand its own role position, and helps it to find out the links and reasons for problems in the agency work, and take appropriate measures. This observation perspective can also be found in many other issues that require more theoretical discussion, this paper only expects to obtain the effect of throwing bricks to attract jade.