Reverse Engineering Integrated Circuit is to break IC‘s key technologies designed with property owner. On the basis of this, the integrated circuit layout design obtained will inevitably contain imitation and copying of the prior layout design, so it is easy to generate infringement disputes. In the event of an infringement dispute, the accused infringer must be defended on the grounds of IC reverse engineering. At this time, a series of more complicated problems will be highlighted:
What are the criteria for judging infringement of integrated circuits copyright?
How to prove the establishment of reverse engineering integrated circuit?
What is its judgment standard?
What is the boundary between infringement and reverse engineering behavior?
The above questions are critical because they relate to how to define a relatively clear boundary between legitimate reverse engineering.
If these problems are clear, on the one hand, it will help protect the legal rights of the copyrights holders of integrated circuit layout designs, and avoid infringers from escaping legal sanctions by using IC reverse engineering as a defense. On the other hand, it will make the people who implement integrated circuit reverse engineering correct. Evaluate the legal risks of their actions, understand whether they are suspected of infringement litigation and how to circumvent them, so that the integrated circuit industry develops in a healthy and orderly direction.
However, due to the late start of China’s IC industry, the promulgation of the Regulations on the Protection of Layout Designs of Integrated Circuits has also been a matter of recent years, so they have not paid much attention to these issues. At present, the domestic works and papers on integrated circuits are basically focused on the basic knowledge of integrated circuits, layout design, reverse engineering, and why it is necessary to give separate legislative protection to the layout design of integrated circuits.