Research On The Compensation Of Patent Infringement Damages

The legislation and judicature of patent law in various countries are expected to solve two problems first, which are the confirmation of patent infringement and the compensation for damages of patent infringement. Even in the United States whose patent system is comparably advanced, legal experts still face great challenges caused by compensation for damages of patent infringement technically and economically. China, as a country with a rapid developing as well as an initial launched patent system, faces a comprehensive problem in the field of compensation for damages of patent infringement. This problem includes the following aspects:the damages in substantial law, the casual relationship, the evidence system in procedural law, the design of judicial proceedings, and most importantly, the economical consideration of the compensation for damages of patent infringement.Currently, the compensation system for damages of patent infringement in Patent Law in China adopts the tort injury compensation system in Civil Law. Moreover, the above system only mentions the calculation method for the amount of damages. The judicial interpretation made by the Supreme People’s Court only basically provides the calculation method centering on the actual loss of obligee and the illegal profit of infringer. However, the current law provisions are beyond the reach when People’s Courts apply the infringement damages compensation rules to solve practical problems.Hence, this paper concentrates on the substantial law of compensation for patent infringement damages. At the first part, after the collating of the current compensation rules for damages of patent infringement and the judicial judgements, existing problems in compensation system for patent infringement damages are summarized. Then, second part mainly discussed some basic theoretical problems from the perspective of right to claim for the patent infringement damages compensation. And the basic problems involves patent infringement, the loss of obligee, the causal relationship between the above two elements, and the principles of compensatory and punitive damages. The problems in practice are based on the solution of the basic theoretical problems. Therefore, on the basis of current legislation and judgements and the reference of advanced legislation and judicial experience from other countries, theoretical basis for the current four calculation methods of patent infringement damages and the confirmation of their causal relationship will be discussed in this part. The four calculation methods are as follows:the actual loss of obligee, the illegal profit of infringer, royalty payments, statutory compensation. When discussing the above four calculation methods, the established provision of damages scope and causal relationship judgement in the United States will be significantly used as reference. In the meanwhile, the Patent Law in China has provided the exemption of patent infringement damages compensation, which is the defense rule of legitimate source. However, the contents and application standards of this defense rule are not unified in practice. Thus, this paper will present an integrative view on the patent infringement damages, and give a theoretical analysis over the defense system of legitimate source on the basis of good faith acquisition in Civil Law in China. Then after putting the theory into practice, the application standards of the legitimate source defense in practice will be studied. In the last part of this paper will summarize the personal view during the above argumentation and come up with the suggestions on the compensation system of the patent infringement damages.