Is it considered infringement to imitate integrated circuit diagrams?

When making Integrated circuit diagrams, some original creators found that the integrated circuit diagrams they designed were plagiarized by others, which meant that the other party imitated their own integrated circuit diagrams. When discovering that their integrated circuit diagrams have been infringed by others, the original creator will plan to defend his rights. The editor of Legal Savior Network tells us that it depends on the actual situation.

Is imitating integrated circuit diagrams considered an infringement?

First of all, the law does not clearly provide for this behavior , on the other hand, selling for profit after imitation should be regarded as an infringement, and the specific determination depends on the analysis of the specific behavior.

1. Copying circuit boards does not infringe. Printed circuit boards have no corresponding intellectual property rights.

2. Copyright, layout design and appearance design of integrated circuits cannot be used to protect circuit boards. This is a flaw in the design of the legal system that cannot be overcome at present. It cannot be protected.

3. PCB copying belongs to the category of reverse engineering. Since the birth of the entire concept, it has been under widespread controversy. The method of reverse engineering is It plays a huge role in the development of the integrated circuit industry. Manufacturers from all over the world use this method to understand the development of other people's products. If this behavior is strictly prohibited, it will have an impact on the progress of integrated circuit technology, so countries in the legislation This is regarded as an exception to infringement under certain conditions. Copying layout designs for the purpose of teaching, analyzing, and evaluating concepts, techniques in layout designs, or circuits, logical structures, and component configurations used in layout designs, and applying analysis and evaluation results to original layouts on this basis The design and manufacture of integrated circuits are not considered infringement. However, copying someone else's protected layout design to produce integrated circuits solely for the purpose of business sales should be considered an infringement.

Legal provisions

my country's "Regulations" on integrated circuit layout There are special provisions for design originality. A protected layout design should be original, that is, the layout design is the result of the creator's own intellectual work, and at the time of its creation, the layout design has no legal rights between the creator of the layout design and the manufacturer of integrated circuits. It is not a recognized conventional design. It can be seen that the integrated circuit layout designThe originality requirement of the design contains two connotations. First, the layout design should be created by the designer himself; first, the layout design should be an unconventional design in the field. The judgment of unconventional designs is an empirical issue at the technical level, and it is generally difficult to list detailed judgment principles and methods. But what is certain is that this unconventional requirement, that is, the requirement of inventive step, does not pursue the non-obvious invention span in the patent law, but only requires a certain improvement in difference compared with conventional designs. Therefore, by mastering the method of judging whether an integrated circuit layout design is an independent creation and whether it is creative, we can deal with problems in review and judicial trials.

As for the judgment of independent creation, most theoretical circles advocate using the "contact" and "substantial similarity" judgment methods in copyright law. In other words, the prerequisite for judging that the integrated circuit layout design is an independent creation must be that the plaintiff proves the existence of evidence of contact, or at least proves the possibility of contact. Only after the contact is determined, a judgment of substantial similarity should be made. The judgment of creativity is mainly based on two factors. First, it is judged to protect the expression of integrated circuit layout design ideas. On the other hand, it is judged whether the integrated circuit layout design has industrial applicability.

If others completely imitate your integrated circuit diagram, that is, make an identical integrated circuit diagram, and you have registered the copyright for the integrated circuit diagram, you can protect your rights. If you find someone else imitating an integrated circuit diagram and you don’t know whether you can protect your rights through law, etc., please come to the Legal Savior website to ask a lawyer.