6.2 Features of Providing Intellectual Property Rights …
521
The registration only requires filling out an application to the copyright register in
accordance with the prescribed form and to provide four copies of the microcircuit
containing the industrial design, which is quite a burdensome requirement. But an
even more disturbing requirement is the obligation of the owner of an industrial design
to provide drawings or schemes of each physical layer of the industrial design. There
is only one exception from this rule: if an industrial design contains information that
constitutes a trade secret, application of drawings to certain layers of the design is
not mandatory. Not more than forty percent of a commercially used industrial design
(for example, two of the five circuits) may contain classified information.
Subject of Protection Under the Act [3]
Generally, the act protects industrial designs captured in a product with a semiconductor microcircuit, but not the circuit or topology of a chip. This approach cannot be
considered conclusive. Some experts claim that the element circuit or topology of an
integrated circuit are also protected. However, as described above, the law probably
doesn’t protect the chip or its layout. An industrial design is determined in the law
as follows.
It is a number of captured or encoded images:
(A) Metal, insulating or semiconductor materials having certain three-dimensional
models that are absent or present in the layers of the device containing the
semiconductor microcircuit or representing such models;
(B) In which the connection of images to each other is built in such manner that each
image contains a model of surface of one of the forms of the image containing
a semiconductor microcircuit.
Considering such complex legal definition of an industrial design, one can say that
this law protects only the designs, the owners of which present three-dimensional
models in semiconductor microcircuits. The law, however, doesn’t always ensure
protection of one-dimensional or two-dimensional quantum semiconductor devices.
This means that any intruder can copy circuit or topology of one of the layers
of a protected three-dimensional integrated circuit or a semiconductor device and
avoid legal liability if such intruder doesn’t copy the scheme of any other layer of
the protected device. An industrial design can be created using a single sample or a
number of photolithographic samples as described in this chapter dedicated to reverse
engineering.
Another legal problem connected to the protection of industrial designs exclusively is due to the fact that certain manufacturers of integrated microcircuits don’t
actually require an industrial design. For example, operations such as ion implantation, polishing, formation of separation regions, reverse lithography, photolithography, and lithography using electron beams can be performed without an industrial
design. It can be said that the Act actually provides no protection at all to threedimensional topographies of integrated circuits if (1) layers or regions in the integrated circuits developed later were created by means of processes without using a
design and (2) as a result, such designs differ significantly from protected topologies
of integrated circuits created using designs. In accordance with such interpretation,
521
The registration only requires filling out an application to the copyright register in
accordance with the prescribed form and to provide four copies of the microcircuit
containing the industrial design, which is quite a burdensome requirement. But an
even more disturbing requirement is the obligation of the owner of an industrial design
to provide drawings or schemes of each physical layer of the industrial design. There
is only one exception from this rule: if an industrial design contains information that
constitutes a trade secret, application of drawings to certain layers of the design is
not mandatory. Not more than forty percent of a commercially used industrial design
(for example, two of the five circuits) may contain classified information.
Subject of Protection Under the Act [3]
Generally, the act protects industrial designs captured in a product with a semiconductor microcircuit, but not the circuit or topology of a chip. This approach cannot be
considered conclusive. Some experts claim that the element circuit or topology of an
integrated circuit are also protected. However, as described above, the law probably
doesn’t protect the chip or its layout. An industrial design is determined in the law
as follows.
It is a number of captured or encoded images:
(A) Metal, insulating or semiconductor materials having certain three-dimensional
models that are absent or present in the layers of the device containing the
semiconductor microcircuit or representing such models;
(B) In which the connection of images to each other is built in such manner that each
image contains a model of surface of one of the forms of the image containing
a semiconductor microcircuit.
Considering such complex legal definition of an industrial design, one can say that
this law protects only the designs, the owners of which present three-dimensional
models in semiconductor microcircuits. The law, however, doesn’t always ensure
protection of one-dimensional or two-dimensional quantum semiconductor devices.
This means that any intruder can copy circuit or topology of one of the layers
of a protected three-dimensional integrated circuit or a semiconductor device and
avoid legal liability if such intruder doesn’t copy the scheme of any other layer of
the protected device. An industrial design can be created using a single sample or a
number of photolithographic samples as described in this chapter dedicated to reverse
engineering.
Another legal problem connected to the protection of industrial designs exclusively is due to the fact that certain manufacturers of integrated microcircuits don’t
actually require an industrial design. For example, operations such as ion implantation, polishing, formation of separation regions, reverse lithography, photolithography, and lithography using electron beams can be performed without an industrial
design. It can be said that the Act actually provides no protection at all to threedimensional topographies of integrated circuits if (1) layers or regions in the integrated circuits developed later were created by means of processes without using a
design and (2) as a result, such designs differ significantly from protected topologies
of integrated circuits created using designs. In accordance with such interpretation,