PRACTICE AND IMPORTANCE OF IP COURT

03/01/2009

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Taiwan 's Intellectual Property Court was formally established and began operations on 1 July 2008 on the basis of the newly enacted Intellectual Property Court Organization Act and Intellectual Property Case Adjudication Act.  The IP Court is developing toward the goals of specialization, efficiency, and internationalization.

 

In accordance with the IP Case Adjudication Act, the IP Court handles cases arising under the Patent Act, the Trademark Act, the Copyright Act, the Optical Disk Act, the Trade Secrets Act, the Integrated Circuit Layout Protection Act, and the Plant Variety and Plant Seed Act, as well as IP-related cases under the Fair Trade Act.

 

The IP Court is currently staffed with nine specialist judges and nine technical examination officers. Of the technical examination officers, five have backgrounds in mechanical engineering, two in electronics and information engineering, and two in chemistry and biotechnology.  To date, technical examination officers have largely been selected from among the senior examiners of the Intellectual Property Office.  Their main duties are to participate in the litigation process by collecting technical data, performing analysis, and providing technical opinions with regard to technical points of dispute arising in IP cases, in order to assist judges in arriving at technical judgments.

 

Because the IP Case Adjudication Act does not grant the IP Court exclusive jurisdiction over IP-related disputes, if the ordinary courts have a need for assistance in reaching judgments on technical points of dispute when hearing IP-related cases, they may also request the technical examination officers attached to the IP Court to provide such assistance.

 

According to the latest figures announced by the IP Court , in the period from 1 July 2008 to 31 December 2008, it accepted 694 cases for adjudication, comprising 275 civil suits, 175 criminal prosecutions, and 244 administrative suits.  Of the 275 civil cases accepted, 217 were related to patents, 26 to trademarks, 49 to copyright, and two to trade secrets; the remainder were other types of cases.  364 of the 694 cases were concluded within the above six-month period.  The IP Court was aided by the technical examination officers in a total of 136 cases.

 

Taiwan has devoted many years of effort to combating the infringement of intellectual property rights, improving the environment for IPR protection, and enhancing IPR protection, in the hope of being removed from the Special 301 Watch List of the United States Trade Representative.  In February 2009, the USTR formally removed Taiwan from its Special 301 Watch List.