Proposed Intellectual Property Court Organic Act to Be Submitted to Legislative Yuan for Discussion in September.

The Judicial Yuan will soon wrap up the proposed IP Court Organic Act and submit it to the Legislative Yuan for discussion.  The Judicial Yuan has worked on the draft organic act for 18 months.  The establishment of the IP court--a pioneering institution in Taiwan’s judiciary history—will open up a new era of the development of the knowledge industry in Taiwan.

 

The IP court will contribute to speedy and cost-effective resolution of disputes between businesses, local and foreign, over patents, trademarks, copyright and the relevant civil, criminal and administrative lawsuits thereby saving judiciary resources, business opportunities and social resources concerned from being stalled or consumed in the prolonged proceedings of lawsuits.

 

The draft Organic Act is composed of 43 articles of provision in eight chapters.  Article 1 provides that the IP court will adjudicate suits of civil or administrative nature arising from, and initial appeals in the district court judgments on criminal aspects of IP disputes.  Article 2 defines the subject-matter jurisdiction of the IP court over claims and administrative actions arising from rights and interests protected by the Patent Act, Trademark Act, Copyright Act, Optical Disk Act, Trade Secret Act, Integrated Circuit Layout Protection Act, the Plant Variety And Plant Seed Act, and/or the Fair Trade Act, as well as initial appeals in district court judgments on the criminal aspects of IP law violations.  The Organic Act also authorizes the institution of technical examiners, which will be formed by reference to the relevant practice adopted by the German Federal Patent Court.  That is, the technical examiners will be mainly the technical examiners transferred from the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office.  They will participate in hearing and making decisions on the cases presented in the IP court.

 

However, whether IP’s jurisdiction over the civil aspects of the cases should be determined by law or by rights is yet to be determined.  WENG Yueh-Sheng, President of the Judicial Yuan, will call a joint meeting among representatives from the industrial sector, the government and scholars with a view to coming up with a conclusion on this issue.  The Judicial Yuan has scheduled to submit the proposed Organic Act to the Legislative Yuan in September when the new legislative session will begin.  (2005.7)

CYJ/EMA