tailieunhanh - Báo cáo y học: "Scope of claim coverage in patents of fufang Chinese herbal drugs: Substitution of ingredients"

Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về y học được đăng trên tạp chí y học Critical Care giúp cho các bạn có thêm kiến thức về ngành y học đề tài: Scope of claim coverage in patents of fufang Chinese herbal drugs: Substitution of ingredients. | Wang et al. Chinese Medicine 2011 6 30 http content 6 1 30 CHINESE MEDICINE COMMENTARY Open Access Scope of claim coverage in patents of fufang Chinese herbal drugs Substitution of ingredients Xinsheng Wang1 Jiaher Tian2 and Albert Wai-Kit Chan3 Abstract Herbal ingredients in a Chinese fufang prescription are often replaced by one or several other herbal combinations. As there have been very few Chinese herbal patent infringement cases it is still unclear how the Doctrine of Equivalents should be applied to determine the scope of equivalents in Chinese fufang prescriptions. Case law principles from cases in other technical areas such as chemical patents and biological drug patents can be borrowed to ascertain a precise scope of a fufang patent. This article summarizes and discusses several chemical and biopharmaceutical patent cases. In cases where a certain herbal ingredient is substituted by another herb or a combination of herbs accused infringers are likely to relate herbal drug patents to chemical drug patents with strict interpretation whereas patent owners may take advantage of the liberal application of Doctrine of Equivalence in biopharmaceutical patents by analogizing the complex nature of herbal drugs with biological drugs. Therefore consideration should be given to the purpose of an ingredient in a patent the qualities when combined with the other ingredients and the intended function. The scope of equivalents also depends on the stage of the prior art. Moreover it is desirable to disclose any potential substitutes when drafting the application. Claims should be drafted in such a way that all foreseeable modifications are encompassed for the protection of the patent owner s intellectual property. Introduction In Chinese medicine practice single herbal ingredient prescriptions are referred to as danfang whereas multiple herbal ingredients prescriptions are fufang which is more widely used than danfang due to the synergistic effects. .