我國專利法懲罰性損害賠償制度之現況—以主觀要件為中心

Abstract

專利法懲罰性損害賠償的規定在我國已行之有年，惟多年以來針對專利法懲罰性賠償金的規定大多著重在法理的探討。然而其於民國100年突遭短暫刪除，重行引起各界關注。是以本文嘗試跳脫傳統研究學術理論為主的框架，以「二元邏輯斯迴歸」統計分析輔以個案質性探討的實證途徑，歸納我國智慧財產法院自成立六年來在專利侵權案件上適用懲罰性賠償金規範的判決結果，嘗試找出法院在決定是否課與懲罰性賠償金時，判斷被告「故意」侵權與否的衡量標準，以及實務上課與懲罰性賠償金的實際狀況。而研究發現，當「被告接受原告通知前已知悉系爭專利」、以及「接受通知後被告仍繼續侵權的行為」時，將會對法院判斷被告有無故意的結果產生顯著的影響，然而整體上法院認定故意侵權的標準仍相當嚴格。此外，我國專利侵權訴訟權利人勝訴率偏低，且法院對於懲罰性賠償金的課與仍然相當保守。再者，從專利侵權損害賠償之特殊性以及比較法之角度觀察，專利侵權之損害賠償不應再以填補損害為限，而應兼具嚇阻與懲罰之功能。因此，懲罰性損害賠償此一英美法之制度，是否真與我國民法體系有所扞格，造成專利權人可輕易獲取遠超過其損害之賠償金額，而有過度保護專利權人的現象，即有再予探求之必要。

The “punitive damages” regime, known as treble damages, has long been introduced into R.O.C Patent Law. However, for many years, most discussions about the punitive damages provision are restricted to the theory of its nature and function except for the state of judicial practice. Thus, this thesis aims at analyzing cases of patent infringement, which are selected conditionally from the R.O.C Intellectual Property Court (IPC) since its establishment in 2008, by the methods of “Binary Logistic Regression” and cases studying. Therefore, in an empirical way, we can conclude about what factor plays an important role in proving willful infringement and take an overall review upon the application of punitive damages regulation in judicial practice simultaneously. Moreover, this thesis discovered that if defendant is aware of such patent before patentee’s notice or continues to infringe patent after notice, it is highly likely that the IPC will deem defendant’s act of patent infringement willful. But virtually IPC is still conservative on the recognition of defendant’s “bad faith”. Besides, patentee’s ratio of winning in infringement litigations is relatively low compared to other countries like U.S. Even if defendant’s bad faith is proved, the multiple and amount of enhanced damages on average are comparatively low as well. Furthermore, in light of the features of patent infringement cases and from the viewpoints of comparative law, compensation of damages shall not serve as the only purpose of liability of patent infringement anymore. The function of deterrence and punishment of patent infringement shall be included otherwise. Hence, it is necessarily worthy of a more comprehensive study about whether the punitive damages regime originated from common law system is alien to our traditional statutes centered by the R.O.C Civil Code, and whether it leads to an over-protection for patentee that usually causes unjust enrichment.