knowledge products are not only a kind of personal wealth, but also a kind of social wealth, and the popularization and application of knowledge products are related to the vital interests of the public. This requires that China should give consideration to the interests of intellectual property owners and social public interests when legislating intellectual property rights, so as to achieve a balance between them.
Keywords intellectual property rights; Public interests; Social public interests
"Private right" is the basic attribute of intellectual property, and intellectual property, as a right form of private intellectual property, is strictly protected by law. However, the object of intellectual property protection-intellectual products, is a kind of information, which has the dual nature of private products and public products, and the distribution of rights and obligations brought about by it is not only related to the personal interests of intellectual property owners, but also to the interests of the public. Therefore, while recognizing and protecting the interests of intellectual property owners, intellectual property legislation also needs to give consideration to the protection of public interests. In recent years, some international intellectual property conventions have clearly stipulated the issue of public interests in intellectual property law. Ensuring public interests has become the aim of intellectual property legislation in various countries. In this paper, the protection function of intellectual property law on public interests is analyzed only by combining the relevant laws and regulations of copyright law,
patent law and trademark law in the special intellectual property law.
1. Intellectual property law encourages the creative activities of intellectual products on the basis of giving them exclusive use
Intellectual products, as intangible property, are different from tangible property, and once they are made public, it is difficult for the original owners of intellectual products to exclusively control them. Competitors can produce similar products by studying and imitating knowledge products in the market, without paying a lot of intellectual labor and R&D costs, and bear corresponding market risks. Therefore, competitors can sell similar knowledge products in the market at a lower price and compete with the owners of knowledge products, which makes it difficult for the owners of knowledge products to recover their investment from their intellectual activities, let alone gain, which greatly discourages the enthusiasm of the owners of knowledge products for intellectual activities. Intellectual property law gives the owner of intellectual products exclusive right to use, excluding others from unauthorized use. With this monopoly position, the owner of intellectual property rights can recover his investment in all aspects of intellectual activities. This system design encourages the creative activities of intellectual products, for example, the granting of personal property rights of works stimulates the creation and dissemination of intellectual works, the huge benefits brought by exclusive right to implement inspire people to engage in invention and creation activities, and the exclusive use of trademarks urges manufacturers to improve the quality of goods and create more well-known brands. Therefore, the intellectual property law reflects the dynamic efficiency of giving limited monopoly rights to stimulate innovation. By granting limited monopoly rights, it stimulates knowledge creation activities and rewards the investment in innovation, thus stimulating the investment in time, energy and capital for innovators, thus creating more knowledge products and continuously meeting the social demand for knowledge products.
second, the exchange of monopoly for "open mechanism" has produced huge social public interests.
The intellectual property law has made knowledge products open to the society as soon as possible through a series of institutional design incentives. It can be said that openness is also an important social public interest. It not only ensures the public to get close to the original creator's knowledge products properly, but also provides sufficient "nourishment" for subsequent innovation and promotes technological innovation and cultural innovation; But also avoids repeated creation and research on the same object, and saves social resources. This is particularly evident in the Copyright Law and the Patent Law. The Copyright Law gives the obligee the exclusive right to copy and distribute in exchange for the disclosure of the work, which provides a lot of information for the subsequent creation. Although it restricts the free access to the work, especially the profitable use and dissemination, it stimulates the creation of more new works that meet the needs of society at the original level, and ultimately promotes cultural prosperity and civilized progress. This is especially true in the Patent Law, which ensures the disclosure of granted patents through the requirement of "full disclosure" of patents. These open patents become an important source of information, providing technical information and knowledge for subsequent inventions and research, avoiding repeated investment in the same object, and developers will save time and funds for other research and development, and constantly promote more new inventions to be created to meet the needs of society for technological progress.
Third, appropriately restrict the rights of intellectual property owners to achieve a balance between personal interests and social public interests
Relevant laws at home and abroad all regard public interests as the premise for intellectual property owners to exercise their rights. For example, paragraph 2 of Article 4 of China's Copyright Law stipulates that copyright owners shall not violate the Constitution and laws and shall not harm social public interests; Another example is the United States, whose legislation and judicature have strengthened the view that "intellectual property is a limited right to achieve social goals" and insisted that "the reward for intellectual property owners is the second consideration". Therefore, intellectual property rights are characterized by conditional exclusivity, limited exclusivity and limited timeliness. This is mainly manifested in the following aspects: first, the intellectual property law limits the time and scope of intellectual property protection. For example, China's current Patent Law stipulates that the protection period of invention patents is 2 years. After 2 years, invention patents have become the wealth of the whole society. Secondly, the intellectual property law also stipulates some provisions of "fair use", "legal permission" and "compulsory implementation". China's Copyright Law stipulates that anyone who uses a published work of others for personal study, research or appreciation may do so without the permission of the copyright owner and without paying remuneration to him. The Patent Law stipulates that the use or sale of a patented product manufactured by the patentee or licensed by the patentee after it is sold does not constitute infringement, that is, the use of the patented product by the patentee after exhaustion doctrine does not constitute infringement. On the basis of fully protecting rights, the necessary restrictions on intellectual property rights are to safeguard public interests and seek a balance between personal interests and social interests on the premise of protecting private rights. The so-called restriction of rights should be a necessary restriction on the basis of fully protecting rights; The protection of rights should be a necessary protection under the premise of realizing social interests.
iv. promoting fair competition and maintaining a good market order
promoting effective competition is an important public interest of intellectual property law. Usually, producers can use any available means in the market to gain an advantage against their competitors, but this means must be just, legal and reflect fair competition among market participants. Without the protection of intellectual property rights, enterprises can immediately copy the improved technology and compete with the improvers without having to invest time and energy in technological transformation; Manufacturers can compete in the market by "hitchhiking" and "alongside famous brands" instead of competing in improving the quality of products. These are unfair and unfair competitions that violate the laws of market competition and seriously disrupt the order of market competition. On the contrary, when the patent right is granted, the competitor realizes that he can't copy and imitate the patented invention at will, so he has to conduct independent research and development to form alternative inventions and improved inventions, because they know that having a patent that meets the needs of society and has a broad market is an important weight for enterprises to occupy and open up the market, an important means to obtain huge economic benefits and be invincible in the competition. This kind of competition is fair competition based on the continuous development of new technologies. Given the trademark right, the trademark is regarded as an identifiable business mark, and the trademark owner has the right to prohibit others from using the same or similar trademark as his registered trademark on the same or similar goods or services approved for use. By preventing the confusion of trademarks of commodities in the market, the competition order is maintained, and manufacturers are urged to compete in the market on the basis of improving product quality.
V. Protecting the legitimate rights and interests of consumers
As public wealth, knowledge products will eventually enter the circulation field and become consumer products in the hands of consumers. Therefore, protecting the interests of consumers has become one of the legislative objectives of intellectual property law. Intellectual property law protects the interests of consumers through two mechanisms: on the one hand, it gives the owners of knowledge products the exclusive right to use, which distinguishes the knowledge products created by different owners of knowledge products, and also prevents counterfeit knowledge products from entering the market circulation field, thus ensuring that consumers can buy products of high quality that they trust. For example, the trademark law protects the exclusive right of trademark owners, thus distinguishing the source of products or services and ensuring that consumers can choose the products they need according to their own wishes by virtue of trademarks. Trademarks not only have the function of distinguishing the source of goods, but also have the function of identifying the consistent quality of goods. Once consumers are used to using a specific trademark as a symbol of the quality of specific goods, they will be convinced that the goods they buy with this trademark have the consistency of quality, and gradually form a kind of "brand awareness" and are willing to pay higher fees for this goods. Manufacturers can win consumers' favor for their products with the help of trademarks, thus gaining greater profits, encouraging manufacturers to improve the quality of their products in order to realize greater benefits by using trademarks, and finally ensuring that consumers can obtain high-quality products.
therefore, the intellectual property law not only confirms and protects the interests of intellectual property owners in legal form, but also takes into account the protection of public interests. Although the acquisition of intellectual property rights means that the obligee obtains a certain degree of monopoly position, it is a concession made by the interests of the public to encourage technological innovation. When exercising rights, the obligee should also pay attention to achieving a balance of interests with the public.
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