Newsletter
REFORM OF IPR DISPUTE RESOLUTION SYSTEMS
Following the enactment in January and March 2007 respectively of the Act of Handling Intel-lectual Property Cases by the Intellectual Prop-erty Rights Court and the Act of Organization of the IPR Court, the Intellectual Property Office is now considering putting forward amendments to the Patent Act and the Trademark Act to achieve the following objectives.
‧Simpler Remedy Procedures
In line with legislation in other countries, the IPO proposes to reduce the system for han-dling patent and trademark disputes from the current four instances at four levels to three instances at three levels. The first level would be an examination within the IPO by a panel of three senior examiners; the second level would be a hearing of both fact and law by the IPR Court; and the third level would be a hearing of points of law by the Supreme Ad-ministrative Court.
‧Disputants as parties
Current legislation makes the IPO a party to all dispute resolution procedures. This ar-rangement means that the two parties with a substantive interest in the dispute are unable to directly conduct attack and defense as parties to the proceedings. This not only makes ad-ministrative remedy procedures more time-consuming, but also confuses the role of the IPO, which ought to be that of an adjudi-cator. Following the establishment of the IPR Court, patent- and trademark-related disputes will be conducted within a framework in which the interested parties will be the op-posing parties in the administrative dispute resolution process. The IPO hopes that this will enable disputes over intellectual property rights to be resolved more rapidly and effec-tively.
‧Oral hearings
In principle, disputes will be handled by means of oral proceedings, to enable the points at issue to be fully elucidated by argu-ment. The procedures for hearing disputes will also be made more rigorous and will give greater protection to the interests of the parties, to remove any concern that the reduced number of procedural levels may result in in-adequate protection.