Newsletter
ONE-STOP SHOP PLANNED FOR FASTER HEARING OF IPR CASES
To better protect intellectual property rights and increase the penalties for IPR infringements, the Executive Yuan and the Judicial Yuan recently reached a consensus to soon establish a coordi-nated single access point for IPR matters be-tween the two branches of government. The Executive Yuan will provide specialist support in matters related to IPR legislation, and will es-tablish channels for IPR experts to participate in court proceedings or to provide advice, to assist judges in hearing IPR infringement cases expe-ditiously.
The Executive Yuan also promised to speed up the preparation of amendments to the Criminal Code and the Copyright Law. These amend-ments would abolish the "successive offences" rule (i.e. remove the limit on penalties for mul-tiple like offences, so that each instance can be separately penalized) and increase the penalties for criminal IPR infringements, in order to ef-fectively combat IPR infringement and safe-guard fairness and justice in the information age.
The Executive Yuan states that despite the ef-forts of law enforcement agencies in recent years in combating counterfeiting and piracy, the US still regards IPR law enforcement in Taiwan as lax, and the penalties light, so that they are in-effective in deterrence. In view of this, the Ex-ecutive Yuan hopes that the Judicial Yuan can set up specialist IPR courts, and that through further training, judges can realize that IPR in-fringement is no less serious than other criminal offences. Such measures would bring judicial practice into line with international standards, and would enhance both the efficiency of pro-ceedings in IPR infringement cases, and their deterrent effect.