軟體專利爭訟案例之分析與制度發展之研究

Abstract

當我國產業結構從製造業升級至高附加價值之資訊服務業，電腦軟體技術將扮演主要的推手，相對亦襯托出軟體專利之價值。各國對軟體專利之重視，可從各國逐年成長的軟體專利件數得以驗證，以美國為例，2006年的軟體專利件數即高達40,000件，占當年度美國公告專利之20%。但隨著全球軟體專利件數的增加，其衍生爭議同時亦襲捲全球，最令人非難的即是軟體專利「品質不佳」、「訴訟氾濫」及「Patent Troll」等現象。有鑑於這些問題，不禁令人疑竇軟體專利究竟是鼓勵創新或是鼓勵訴訟，而這也是引發本研究的動機。 本研究係藉由比較法的觀點，從美國、歐洲、日本及我國之軟體專利要件、軟體專利案例及軟體專利審查實務，架構出目前全球主要的軟體專利制度，並藉由專利分析、訴訟資料分析及案例分析進行軟體專利問題之實證探討，再從軟體專利問題架構本研究之軟體專利制度分析架構，以該架構進行軟體專利制度之實證分析。因為我國軟體專利主要係承襲美國，故軟體專利制度實證分析係以美國及我國為主，本研究發現，目前美國寬鬆的軟體專利制度已漸漸朝向嚴格審查，而我國正當軟體專利修法之餘，然為與國際軟體專利制度接軌，勢必需依循全球主要之軟體制度，然美國軟體專利制度已朝嚴格審查發展，我國各界亦拒絕採納日本軟體專利制度，這是否意謂我國軟體專利制度將朝歐洲軟體專利制度發展，就本研究之分析結果，其可能性極高。

Under the government policy in Taiwan, the structure upgrade of information industry is moving from “manufacture base” to “high value service base”. The “computer software” will be the main force to drive the industrial structure upgrade, and then the value of the software patent will be of more importance. In the global market, the number of the software patent grows rapidly during the recent years. Take the U.S. for example. There are 40,000 software patents in 2006 and the rate of software patent is 20% of the issued patents in 2006. However, the growth of software patent gives rise to many disputes, such as “the bad quality of software patent,” “floody patent lititgation,” and “patent troll.” Is software patent for innovation or for litigation? Consequently, it is the motive of this thesis to study this issue. This thesis does a comparative study on the software patent elements, software patent examination, and software patent cases among the U.S., the EP, the Japan, and Tawian. With the comparative study, this thesis constructs the software patent regime and then uses the patent analysis, litigation data analysis and case study to do the empirical study on the software patent problems. Based on results of the software patent regime and the empirical study, this thesis construes a hypothetic software patent regime, which is used to do the empirical study on the software patent regime. Taiwan’s software patent regime follows the U.S.’s software patent case law. By the hypothetic software patent regime, this thesis finds that the U.S. software patent regime tends to examine strictly, and Taiwan also faces amendment of software patent examination guideline under the pressure. Finally, this thesis finds Taiwan’s software patent regime might adopt the EP software patent regime, because the influence of the amendment of the software patent examination guideline will not cause sharp effect for information industry in Taiwan.