Taiwan moves closer to new law, including patent marking

"Legislative Yuan considers sweeping changes to Patent Act", by Daisy Wang (Lee and Li Attorneys at Law, Taiwan), notes that the island's Patent Act, previously amended in 2003, is under review again. Over the past four years the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) has been conducting public hearings in order to solicit comments and suggestions on how to boost Taiwan's economic and industrial competitiveness, promote the development of biotechnology, green technology, advanced agriculture and other important technology and -- and this is probably the most difficult bit -- improve the patent examination process.

A draft amendment was submitted to the Ministry of Economic Affairs almost exactly one year ago and, following the ministry's review, a draft Act (approved by the Executive Yuan in December) is now before the Legislative Yuan. The proposed reform contains matters of interest to PatLit's readers. According to Daisy Wang:

"Enforcement of patent rights

The draft act sets out subjective elements of patent infringement (ie, a patent owner may claim damages from another party that infringes on the patent with intent or out of negligence). Changes have also been made with respect to the calculation of damages (eg, a royalty rate is added as one of the methods) and methods for patent marking. The act stipulates that:

"where patent marking cannot be made on the patented product, patent marking can be made on the label of the packaging of the product, or can be made in another apparent manner which may cause others to recognise it."

It seems that the recent spate of US action on patent marking has generated a lot of interest outside the US, even though the well-publicised issues in that jurisdiction relate to a set of rules that are unique to the US.

Source: article in International Law Office here.