Newsletter
INVENTION PATENT INFRINGE-MENTS DECRIMINALIZED
On 4 October 2001 the Legislative Yuan gave its third and final reading to an amendment to the Patent Law, which abolishes criminal penalties for infringement of invention patents. Future infringers of invention patents will not face criminal prosecution, and charges will also be dropped in current and pending prosecutions. But to redress the balance of protection of pat-entees' rights following decriminalization, the upper limit for civil damages is increased from two times the actual losses incurred to three times.
This amendment was the first of numerous pending items of legislation that are needed to pave the way for Taiwan's accession to the World Trade Organization, and this is why the Legislative Yuan rushed the amendment through in the current session. But the amended law re-tains the existing criminal penalties for infringers of new utility model and new design patents. The legislature's decision to decriminalize only infringement of invention patents, which are even more worthy of protection, in fact has led to an imbalance in the protection provided by the law. It can be predicted that the decriminaliza-tion of invention patent infringements will lead to the remaining criminal sanctions also being called into question, and this will bring nearer the day when criminal punishments under the Patent Law will be entirely removed. In future, the weight of patent litigation will vest with civil actions, and the preservation of civil evidence will be an important procedure to be relied on by patentees when collecting evidence.