By mastering these methods, technicians can quickly understand patent documents

It should be noted that the layout of domestic patent documents usually follows the abstract with the claims. This part of the content is of great significance, mainly the technical solution declared by the patent applicant for protection. However, for technical personnel, the language expression and format of the claims are significantly different from general technical documents, and some technical personnel may feel that the technical solution description in the claims is a bit unconventional.Therefore, the author suggests that technicians can temporarily go beyond the claims and continue reading the specification, drawings, and claims before finally reviewing them.

Firstly, the manual will introduce the technical field and background technology, which is a description of the existing technical situation. Here we can learn about the research and development background of the technical solution in the patent application, laying a foundation for understanding the specific solution in the specification later. For technical personnel, based on the existing technical situation in the background technology, they can preliminarily determine whether the technical solution of this patent is the technical direction they want to understand; If technicians review patent documents as inventors, they can also grasp whether the application documents have grasped the core of the invention point in the writing of patent agents.

The content and specific implementation methods of the invention (utility model) are the main parts of the technical solution recorded in the patent document. Usually, several technical solutions are recorded, which also reflect the technical problems solved and the technical effects achieved by the technical solutions. For patent documents with instructions and drawings, the composition of the specific technical solution disclosed in the patent application can be further understood intuitively by combining the content shown in the drawings. For most technicians, with their professional background, they can fully understand the technical content recorded in the manual, and should be able to reproduce the recorded technical solutions without the need for creative labor. For technical fields familiar to technicians, sometimes the core technical solution of the patent is already reflected in the accompanying drawings of the specification,For efficiency reasons, technicians can obtain the technical content they need from the accompanying drawings in the manual. When the drawings are not sufficient to display the complete technical content, or when there are still questions about the drawings, they can search for the corresponding description in the manual.

It should be noted that the purpose of a patent application is to pursue protection of rights, so the specification also uses legal language such as "described", "optional", and phrases like "... without departing from the principles of the present invention, several improvements can also be made, which should also be considered within the scope of protection of the present invention". As technical personnel, these phrases can be temporarily ignored.

At this point, for technical personnel who want to understand the relevant technology in this field, they can already meet their needs. The claims can be read without reading or simply browsed.

If as the inventor of a patent application, it is necessary to review and confirm whether the description of the technical solution written by the agent in the specification and accompanying drawings conforms to the original design intention, whether the composition of the technical solution is described completely and clearly, whether the technical effect is reasonable and appropriate, and whether some professional vocabulary is a common expression in this field. If there are scheme extensions based on the core invention points in the manual, the feasibility should be confirmed. The author reminds inventors that patent specifications usually describe the invention points in a hierarchical manner, especially for technical solutions with multiple invention points, which will be introduced and explained from different dimensions. This inevitably leads to some repetition of content. We focus on the introduction of each invention point, and the repetition of the same content in the solution composition does not need to consume too much time to read. The content expression is consistent, and there is no contradiction or inconsistency before and after. Furthermore, technicians often pursue the optimal solution in their research and development work, so the technical disclosure provided is also prepared based on their own work results. However, in order to fully protect the technological achievements, the introduction of the solution in the patent application usually does not only record the optimal solution, but also includes some parallel extension solutions. The inventor's reading of the extension solution is mainly based on the rationality and feasibility of the solution, and if necessary, the solution can be supplemented to facilitate the protection of the technological achievements.

Entering the era of artificial intelligence, various large models have tremendous help in assisting reading and extracting the core content of long documents.Technicians can use AI tools to extract and analyze content abstracts from patent documents, and upload the files to AI tools for content extraction and analysis.Of course, AI tools can also customize screenshots for easy analysis of specific content in the manual. If necessary, AI tools can also be used to compare and analyze different patents, which can effectively improve the reading efficiency of patent documents for technical personnel.

If you want to understand the actual scope of protection of the patent, you need to read the claims, which are mostly read by legal professionals. The language of the claims is not suitable for technical personnel to understand the technical solution. Invention patent documents come in both published and authorized versions. As technical personnel, if you want to understand whether your research and development work has fallen or may fall within the scope of protection of existing patents, you need to have a simple understanding of the content of the claims in the authorized text. There is a risk of infringement when the technical features of the accused infringing product (or method) include all necessary technical features recorded in the patent claims (i.e., the principle of comprehensive coverage). Of course, when it comes to patent infringement, there are also issues of literal infringement and equivalent infringement that need to be noted. Literal infringement refers to the accused infringing product (or method) whose technical features are completely consistent with the technical features recorded in the patent claims; Equivalent infringement refers to the situation where the technical features of the accused infringing product (or method) are not completely identical to the technical features recorded in the patent claims, but they are achieved through essentially the same means to achieve essentially the same function and effect, and ordinary technical personnel in this field can associate them without creative labor when the infringement occurs.

Most claims have multiple claims, the first of which is usually the most core protection of a patent application, an independent claim, also known as the "main claim", followed by dependent claims that reference the claim, and possibly parallel independent claims. Dependent claims are further limitations on the independent claims they reference, while parallel independent claims generally protect different products (or methods) under the same concept. If it is necessary to confirm whether there is infringement, first analyze the independent claims. If the independent claims have already been infringed, further analysis of the dependent claims is needed; On the contrary, if independent claims do not infringe, there is no need to analyze dependent claims.

In short, the analysis and interpretation of claims are more about legal issues. If technicians believe that there is a possibility of infringement from a technical perspective, they should communicate with patent agents in a timely manner to confirm whether they have already fallen or may fall within the scope of protection of existing patents.

If as an inventor, it is necessary to confirm whether the claims protect the scheme designed by oneself, whether the dependent claims are protected in a hierarchical manner, and whether the related products (or methods) are fully protected for parallel and independent rights. If the language description in this section is really obscure and difficult to understand, and even feels far from the solution designed by oneself, the author suggests communicating directly with a patent agent and asking the patent agent to explain the intention of setting the claims, which is a more efficient method.

The above content is only some suggestions for technical personnel to understand the patent technology situation in this field and for inventors to read patent documents when reviewing patent application documents. Due to limited space, it is not possible to provide a comprehensive and detailed introduction. In the research and development work of technical personnel, efficient reading of patent literature information is of great help in improving the progress of research and development work, exploring technical research and development ideas, and predicting the risk of infringing on others' patent rights during the research and development process. It is hoped that the above suggestions can be helpful to technical personnel.