According to the provisions of the Patent Act, a patentee has the exclusive right to exclude others from implementing an invention without consent. The term "implementation" refers to acts such as manufacturing, offering for sale, selling, using, or importing products with patented features for the aforementioned purposes. Among these, "manufacturing," based on previous judicial interpretations, refers to producing an item that possesses all the technical features recited in the patent claims (see Intellectual Property and Commercial Court Civil Judgment 113(2024)-Min-Chuan-Shang No. 16).

 

However, in the product development process, product design and product manufacturing are activities that occur at different stages. Therefore, there is controversy over whether product design activities, which encompass the creative process from conceptualization to concrete solutions, can also be considered acts of patent implementation.

 

In the Intellectual Property and Commercial Court Civil Judgment 113(2024)-Min-Chuan-Su No. 48 dated March 18, 2026, the court took an affirmative stance on this issue. The court pointed out that the production process of integrated circuit chips includes upstream design, midstream manufacturing, and downstream packaging and testing stages. The design phase is a necessary prerequisite for subsequent manufacturing, packaging, and testing. Therefore, chip design activities should be considered part of the manufacturing process. Although the defendant in this case only participated in design and did not directly engage in manufacturing, the court ultimately held that the defendant could not deny infringement liability on this basis.