水平限制競爭之技術授權約款---探索歧異面貌下的真實衝突

Abstract

水平競爭同業間之限制競爭行為，其主要類型厥為聯合行為。尤其競爭同業間倘非出於合作研發 等足以促進經濟效率之同業合作行為，而係單純透過合意共同決定價格、限制產量或瓜分市場，則屬 純粹交易限制（naked restraint），構成惡性卡特爾行為（hard-core cartel）。此類行為由於其限制市場競 爭效果甚為直接明顯，在競爭法上屬於當然違法行為。 然而受到智慧財產權保護的專門技術，在授權時因可協議限制被授權人獲得授權之地理區域（著 作權法第37 條、營業秘密法第7 條參照），於是開啟了具有競爭關係之授權人與被授權人之間協議瓜 分地理市場的可能。美國聯邦最高法院在United States v. General Electric Co.案中1, 更明白肯認競爭同 業可透過授權協議，共同決定彼此產品價格。針對此種背離一般競爭法之規範現況，美國著名學者 Herbert Hovemkamp 直指為智慧財產權與競爭法兩大法律領域間之真正衝突2。 反觀歐盟於2004 年重新制訂的技術授權協議規則，對競爭同業之間透過授權協議限制他方價格、 產量或是劃分地理市場等行為，均明定不得豁免歐盟競爭法之法律責任3。我國公平會訂定之技術授權 協議案件處理原則第6 點，就此也採取同一立場4。故就智財權與競爭法此一真正衝突，美國法與歐盟 法何以呈現完全不同的規範現況，非常值得探究其背後原因。相信透過對於雙方法制發展之批判性回 顧，以及兩者至今學說論辯的分析檢證，對於法律理論研究以及我國規範實務，均將產生正面具體貢 獻。

Price fixing, output restraint and market division are highly suspicious in competition law. If there is no efficiency-enhancing collaboration resulted from those behaviors, they are to be deemed as naked restraints, also called hard-core cartels, which are illegal per se in traditional competition law. If those acts, however, fall within the scope of any intellectual property (IP), the situation is quite another case. The United States (U.S.) and European Union (E.U.) diverge at this point. According to the rule established in the 1926 United States v. General Electric case, those naked restraints will be lawful in the U.S. if they are reached by the way of IP licensing. The same conclusion is not true just across the Atlantic Ocean. In the Technology Transfer Agreement Regulation that was promulgated in 2004, the E.U. considers those naked restraints unlawful still even in the context of IP licensing. This project is aimed at exploring and making sense of this divergence. The project team will first identify the exact differences between those two jurisdictions, and then look into the origin of this disparity. We will also review literature discussing this issue, trying to find respective theoretical foundations of the two different patterns. This project will then critically examine the arguments and counter-arguments for the opposite sides on this issue, so as to discover the best approach for Taiwan to deal with the same issue