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在中国专利法下,披露与发明有关的现有技术,是专利申请人的法定义务。理论上,这一制度可以消除申请人和审查员之间的信息不对称,有一定的合理性。但是,美国专利法实践表明,强化申请人披露义务会导致善意申请人过度预防,而对恶意申请人却不起作用,并造成诉讼资源浪费。现有各种改进措施或建议难以有效消除这些负面后果。在数字技术时代,专利审查的手段更加有效;申请人披露信息对专利质量提高的作用可以忽略;专利法上的配套性制度安排可以减小申请人隐瞒现有文献的负面后果。综合权衡这一制度的运行成本和实际收益之后,中国专利法应当修改现有规定,放弃专利申请人的现有技术披露义务。
Under the Patent Law of China, the disclosure of existing technologies related to inventions is the legal obligation of patent applicants. In theory, this system can eliminate the asymmetry of information between applicants and examiners and is reasonable. However, the practice of the U.S. Patent Law shows that strengthening the disclosure obligations of applicants can lead to over-prevention of bona fide applicants, but does not work for malicious applicants and causes litigation resources to be wasted. It is difficult to effectively eliminate these negative consequences by various existing improvements or suggestions. In the era of digital technology, the means of patent examination is more effective; the disclosure of information by the applicant has a negligible effect on the improvement of patent quality; and the matching institutional arrangement in patent law can reduce the negative consequences of the applicant concealing the existing literature. After comprehensively weighing the operating costs and actual benefits of this system, the Chinese Patent Law should amend the existing provisions and abandon the existing technical disclosure obligations of patent applicants.