Research On The Application Of Intellectual Property Punitive Damages System

The application rate of intellectual property punitive compensation system has been low since its establishment.In order to promote the judicial practice of punitive damages,the Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on the Application of punitive Damages in the trial of Civil Cases of infringement of intellectual Property Rights has responded to some hot issues,but the effect is not ideal.Although the Guidelines of Beijing Municipal High People’s Court on the Application of Punitive Damages to Civil Cases involving Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights further detailed the relevant adjudication rules,it still only made partial enumeration provisions on the specific compensation calculation base,multiple and other related core issues,and the specific operability and applicability of judicial practice are still poor.In order to deeply study the punitive compensation system of intellectual property,we should not only pay attention to the development of theory,but also put the research of the current situation of judicial practice in an important position.Through statistical analysis of existing judicial cases and empirical analysis of punitive damages in the field of Copyright Law,Patent Law,Trademark Law and trade secrets,it concludes that the application rate of punitive damages in Trademark Law has an increasing trend,while that in Copyright Law is not obvious,and that in Patent Law,the application rate of punitive damages has a decreasing trend.The application of punitive compensation for infringement of trade secrets is just starting.Although the existing legislation makes more detailed provisions on determining the base and multiple of punitive damages,there are still many problems in judicial practice.For example,there are disputes over the subjective and objective conditions of application,restrictions on the application sequence of the base of punitive damages,large gap between the application rates of different bases,different understandings of multiple values,lack of detailed concrete reference,and unclear boundary between punitive damages and statutory damages in judicial practice restrict the further development of punitive damages system in the field of intellectual property.In order to solve the problems existing in the application of punitive damages,we should first clarify the subjective and objective conditions of the application of punitive damages,adhere to the theory of "dual requirements",and unify the connotation of "intentional" and "indirect intentional".Secondly,it is necessary to determine the compensation base and refine its calculation rules,cancel the application order of the compensation base,increase the application rate of the multiple of the license fee,and try to introduce the agreed compensation as the calculation base.Thirdly,in terms of the multiple of punitive damages,we should unify the understanding of the multiple value,divide the interval of the multiple of compensation,specify the primary and secondary factors of the multiple to consider,quantify the factors of tort consideration,and then calculate the final multiple of compensation by "element accumulation method".Finally,it is important to clarify the relationship between punitive damages and statutory damages,so that punitive damages can play their proper judicial value.