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.

Germany moves to reduce patent appeal backloh

Via Axel Horns' excellent IP:JUR weblog comes news that a German bill to amend that country's patent law has today gained parliamentary approval and must now secure the presidential signature in order to come into force. The new law has some implications for patent litigation in this popular forum. In particular: 

"To reduce the current huge backlog of pending nullification appeal cases (Nichtigkeitsberufungen), the German Federal Supreme Court is set to be changed from an instance fully revising factual and legal points to an instance competent substantially only for legal points. ... in future there will be only a single instance where facts and evidence can be presented, the Federal Patents Court (Bundespatentgericht). The court system will simply be cut back by eliminating the option of presenting fresh facts and evidence during appeal in patent nullification cases;

Improvements concerning the legal basis for implementation of electronic workflows in throughout the German Patent and Trade Mark Office, the Federal Patents Court as well as the Federal Supreme Court;

Cancellation of a current provision ... according to which any person who has brought an infringement action may bring a further action against the defendant on account of the same or a similar act on the basis of another patent only if, through no fault of his own, he was not in a position to assert that patent also in the earlier suit.

Broadening of the Opposition procedure in German Trade Mark Law; also non-registered elder rights shall be eligible as a basis for a Notice of Opposition ...".