{"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:\/\/www.sib.it\/en\/articles\/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 class=\"size-full wp-image-26591 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Contraffazione-equ_vert.png\" alt=\"contraffazione per equivalenti\" width=\"349\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Contraffazione-equ_vert.png 349w, https:\/\/www.sib.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Contraffazione-equ_vert-233x300.png 233w, https:\/\/www.sib.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Contraffazione-equ_vert-116x150.png 116w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 349px) 100vw, 349px\" \/><\/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:\/\/www.sib.it\/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:\/\/www.sib.it\/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>","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":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v18.4.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\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=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/?p=29774\" \/>\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:\/\/www.sib.it\/?p=29774\" \/>\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:\/\/www.sib.it\/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=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\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\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/\",\"name\":\"\",\"description\":\"Intellectual Property since 1882\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/?p=29774#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Contraffazione-equivalenti..png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Contraffazione-equivalenti..png\",\"width\":265,\"height\":163,\"caption\":\"contraffazione per equivalenti\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/?p=29774#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/?p=29774\",\"name\":\"Doctrine of equivalents Gaetano Barbaro\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/?p=29774#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-24T12:55:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-24T14:39:27+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/#\/schema\/person\/3988cde84153da4b745510f0712d395b\"},\"description\":\"Doctrine of equivalents: food for thoughts by European Patent Attorney Gaetano Barbaro discusses how a new test could be devised.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/?p=29774#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/?p=29774\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/?p=29774#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.sib.it\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"(English) Doctrine of equivalents: food for thought \u2013 G. 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