Special IP Tribunals to be Established under Every District Court.

The Judicial Yuan issued an order requesting that special tribunal(s) or section(s) should be established under all district courts to receive and hear all IP-related cases, except for the high courts and their branch courts or those district courts with staff size less than 30 persons.

Owing to the special nature of IP-related cases, judges of district courts hearing IP-related cases should be those qualified with relevant IP-related certification.  The Judicial Yuan has promoted and provided three sessions of IP-related programs for judges to receive on-job training and encouraged them to obtain relevant professional license and qualification.

Taiwan IP Court has been established since July 2008 but on the same court level of the high court.  In this regard, a lot of IP-related cases involving civil and criminal elements are still being referred to and heard by district courts.

The Judicial Yuan enacts relevant rules for the judges of the courts of all levels to follow when assigning judicial affairs with respect to civil/criminal cases or cases of special nature.  According to such rules, every district court should establish special IP tribunal(s) or section(s) to receive and hear newly-filed IP-related cases, and the president of each court should decide and set the number of such tribunals and sections according to caseload.  The caseload of cases involving civil and criminal elements should be taken into account respectively.  It would be appropriate to establish two special sections to deal with IP cases if there is a caseload under 100 cases per year.  On the contrary, if the caseload is more than 100 cases per year, one additional section should be established under the civil or criminal division.  Moreover, two tribunals or six sections should be the maximum number to be established under each district court.  (2010.09)
/CCS