Newsletter
COMPLETE DECRIMINALIZATION OF PATENT INFRINGEMENT
The 1994 amendments to the Patent Law ad-dressed for the first time the issue of decrimi-nalizing patent infringements. At that time, only prison sentences for infringements of invention patents were abolished, while criminal fines were retained, and the criminal penalties for in-fringement of new utility model and new design patents were left entirely unchanged. This led to a situation in which the only criminal sanctions available against infringers of invention patents were monetary fines, whereas infringers of new utility model and new design patents could be incarcerated. This created a marked imbalance in the strength of protection available for inven-tion patents as against new utility model and new design patents, and led to debate over whether patent law ought to be entirely decriminalized.
After lengthy debate and the completion of the legislative process, on 6 February 2003 the Legislative Yuan passed amendments repealing all provisions defining criminal penalties for patent infringements. The abolition of the rele-vant provisions took effect on 31 March 2003. From that time on, remedies for infringements against all kinds of patents, whether invention, new utility model or new design patents, were returned to the purview of civil litigation, thus ending half a century of the use of criminal pen-alties to sanction patent right infringements in the ROC. Thus the civil remedies that were al-ways available within the patent law system have become only means for right holders to enforce their rights.