Limitations On Remedies For Cessation Of Infringement

Cessation of Infringement is an important type of legal remedies for patent infringements in China. In China’s legal practice, the court will generally rule the defendant to cease the infringement once the infrigement is affirmed. There arises a series of issues. For instance, the infringers’ previous investments will become futile and may face more serious punishments than the remedies for infringements, including loosing customers and market shares and going bankruptcies. What’s worse, the rule may even negatively impact public interests.The purpose of patent law is to encourage innovations. In a time of fast technology innovations, the appropriate adoption of remedies for patent infringement is crucial to balance each party’s interests. The balance of interests of patent beneficiaries, owners and infringers, the impact on safety, health and other public benefits, and among others, should all be considered in ruling ceasing the patent infringement. The design of remedies for ceasing the patent infringement is crucial to the reform of China’s intelligence patent system.China’s patent law system was late than those of developed countries. Ceasing the infringement and permanent injunction belong to different law system, though they have similarities in nature and functions. Therefore, the permanent injunction system worths exploring and learning. The permanent injunction system in USA has evolved for a long period of time and it had encountered the difficulties where patent abuse impeding technology developments. It has adopted the four elements of balance law as principles for injunction relief after the e Bay case. In the current legal practice in China, ceasing the infringement is a general rule for patent infringement, which is against the nature of remedies for ceasing infringement and the initial legislative purpose and thus missing the precaution and supplement functions of ceasing the infringement.There are gradual changes in China’s attitude on if ruling ceasing infringement in patent infringement. Though China’s judicial systems don’t introduce the four elements in the permanent injunction in USA, there are regulations on not ruling ceasing the infringement in the judicial interpretations and there are real cases in China’s legal practice. This paper comparatively analyzes the four elements of permanent injunction in USA and the considerations in China where ceasing infringement were not ruled in patent infringement and concludes:(1) Two elements of the permanent injunction in USA, bearing un-accountable damage and monetary remedies couldn’t account the patent owners’ losses, were somehow considered in China’s pre—trial cease of relative conduct, but were not necessary consideration factors in not ruling ceasing infringement.(2) Public interests of the permanent injunction in USA is also considered in not ruling ceasing infringement in China. Even though there is no clear definition on public interests, health, safety, competitiveness and consumers’ benefits are all considerations for not ruling permanent injunction and ceasing infringement.(3) Significant unbalance of interests for each parties in China is kind of interests balance in the four elements in the permanent injunction in USA.(4) Execution difficulty of rulings and delay in executing rights are considerations in not ruling ceasing infringement.This paper proposes suggestions on limitations on ruling ceasing infringement, based on summarizing the experiences in USA, analyzing the nature, reasonabilities and necessities of ceasing infringement and comparing the four elements in permanent injunction in USA and considerations of not ruling ceasing infringements in China.This paper consists of four chapters, in addition to Preface and Conclusion.Chapter One: The current situations and problems in remedies for ceasing infringement in China, to analyze the nature of ceasing infringement, summarize the legislative foundation, legal practice and problems existed.Chapter Two: The basis and investigations in foreign countries on limitations on ceasing the infringement,to analyze the reasonabilities and necessities of limitations on ceasing the infringement and summarize the experiences in the permanent injunction system in USA.Chapter Three: Analysis on the conditions of limitations on the ceasing the infringement, to analyze the considerations in real cases of not ruling ceasing the infringement in China and compare with the four elements in permanent injunctions USA.Chapter Four: Legal proposals to China, to discuss detailed measures of limitations on ceasing patent infringements.