{"id":29774,"date":"2025-09-24T12:55:25","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T12:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/?p=29774"},"modified":"2025-10-24T14:39:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T14:39:27","slug":"english-doctrine-of-equivalents-food-for-thought-g-barbaro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sib.arvis.dev\/en\/articles\/english-doctrine-of-equivalents-food-for-thought-g-barbaro\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctrine of equivalents: food for thought \u2013 G. Barbaro"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The doctrine of equivalents allows to broaden the scope of claims to encompass products or processes that do not fall within the literal scope of a patent claim but are nevertheless equivalent to the claimed ones; its purpose is to promote fair patent coverage so that trivial departures from the claim language cannot be used to avoid infringement.<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26591 alignright lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/sib.arvis.dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Contraffazione-equ_vert.png\" alt=\"contraffazione per equivalenti\" width=\"349\" height=\"450\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/sib.arvis.dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Contraffazione-equ_vert.png 349w, https:\/\/sib.arvis.dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Contraffazione-equ_vert-233x300.png 233w, https:\/\/sib.arvis.dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Contraffazione-equ_vert-116x150.png 116w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 349px) 100vw, 349px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 349px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 349\/450;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The doctrine of equivalents allows patent proprietors to succeed in a patent infringement trial even if a disputed item (apparatus or process) does not fall within the literal scope of the claims; unfortunately, this can make the scope of protection ambiguous causing a conflict between the rights of the patent holder on the one hand, and the right to legal certainty of third parties on the other.<\/p>\n<p>However, there is not yet a single criterion for applying the doctrine of equivalents in all states, and there are differences even between European countries, thus the scope of validation of patents stemming from a same European patent may be determined inconsistently by different national courts.<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, tests have been developed to evaluate whether a disputed item falls within the scope of a claim through the application of the doctrine of equivalents.<\/p>\n<p>In this paper, the author <a href=\"https:\/\/sib.arvis.dev\/en\/our-team\/electronics-semiconductor-patents-italy-gaetano-barbaro\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gaetano Barbaro<\/a> first explores the logical implications of certain requirements that a test should have to assert or deny the presence of infringement in cases where the doctrine of equivalents is applied, and then derives criteria from these requirements to suggest a new test that can be used at trial.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sib.arvis.dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/G_Barbaro-Doctrine-of-Equivalents.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the full article<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>This article is a translation of a pre-print of the article published in Italian by &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/shop.giuffre.it\/070609999-rivista-di-diritto-industriale?srsltid=AfmBOor2nblWOKDvu4YFxL-hR9udfpB6TGwJ72GkJOEdnEM4CXahFSYB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rivista di Diritto Industriale<\/a>&#8220;, n\u00b02, 2025, p. 86-100<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The doctrine of equivalents allows to broaden the scope of claims to encompass products or processes that do not fall within the literal scope of a patent claim but are nevertheless equivalent to the claimed ones; its purpose is to promote fair patent coverage so that trivial departures from the claim language cannot be used [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":26589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Doctrine of equivalents Gaetano Barbaro<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Doctrine of equivalents: food for thoughts by European Patent Attorney Gaetano Barbaro discusses how a new test could be devised.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Doctrine of equivalents Gaetano Barbaro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Doctrine of equivalents: food for thoughts by European Patent Attorney Gaetano Barbaro discusses how a new test could be devised.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sib.arvis.dev\/en\/articles\/english-doctrine-of-equivalents-food-for-thought-g-barbaro\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-24T12:55:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-24T14:39:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sib.arvis.dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Contraffazione-equivalenti..png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"265\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"163\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Laura Ercoli\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Laura Ercoli\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/sib.arvis.dev\\\/en\\\/articles\\\/english-doctrine-of-equivalents-food-for-thought-g-barbaro\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/sib.arvis.dev\\\/en\\\/articles\\\/english-doctrine-of-equivalents-food-for-thought-g-barbaro\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Laura Ercoli\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/sib.arvis.dev\\\/en\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3988cde84153da4b745510f0712d395b\"},\"headline\":\"Doctrine of equivalents: food for thought \u2013 G. 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