Restructuring patent prosecution process as a tool of implementing competition policy-from a fundamental point of view

本研究的主要目的是为了了解专利诉讼程序(包括专利申请、审查、异议和委员会审判)是否可以重构为实施最优竞争政策的有用工具。结论总结如下：1)回答“PTO从竞争政策的角度评估专利申请发明的效果在理论上可行吗？”将是积极的，这意味着，基本上是“是的”。然而，为了估计专利诉讼过程中应用发明在市场上的竞争效应，我们应该对此做出新的规定，而不能为了在专利诉讼中实施这一制度而承受巨大的行政成本。2)“专利权的排他性是否可以通过限制”专利权“下保护专利发明的活动范围(如”制造“、”使用“、”销售“等)在理论上进行调整？目前还没有定论。正如美国一些学者所说，改变专利权对各自发明的排除范围将是一个划时代的想法，但这项研究已经明确表示，同时还有许多问题需要解决。3)问题3)“如果我们能在专利诉讼过程中引入上述两个假设的”想法“，我们可以预期会有什么效果？”在技术创新日新月异的今天，PTO目前似乎很难从竞争政策的角度准确地评估专利申请发明的效果，因此，从竞争政策的角度评估市场效果的想法还需要进行大量的研究，特别是要实现上述想法需要更多的成本和收益的平衡研究。

The main purpose of this research project is to get some insight about if we could reconstruct patent prosecution process (which consists of patent application, examination, objection and board trial), almost conducted by Patent & Trademark Office (PTO),as a useful tool of implementing best competition policy. The summary of conclusion is below; 1) the answer to “Is it theoretically possible for PTO to estimate the effect of patent-applied invention from the point of competition policy? ” would be positive, that means, mostly, “Yes”. Though, to estimate competitive effect in the market of applied inventions in patent prosecution process, we should make new enactment about that and could not suffer from huge administrative cost to implement the system in PTO.2) the answer to ”Could the ”exclusivity” of patent right be theoretically adjusted by limiting the scope of activities protecting patented invention under the “patent right”(such as “make “,”use”, ”sell”, etc)?” is not definitive yet.To vary the scope of exclusion by the patent right from respective inventions would be an epoch-making idea as some scholarship in U.S. suggest, though, this research has made clear that much problems to be solved would be accompanied at the same time. 3) the answer to question 3)”If we could introduce above two hypothetical “ideas” into patent prosecution process, how effects could we expect?” is; today, technological innovation going on so fast, it seems very difficult for the PTO to currently estimate precisely the effect of patent-applied invention from the point of competition policy, so, there need tobe much study to implement the idea of estimating the market effect from the point of competition policy, particularly, much study about balancing between cost and benefit to institute the above idea.