Legal Use Boundary of Licensed Patented Products under the Exhaustion Doctrine: Focusing upon Assembling and Repairing of Patented Products

Abstract

As technologies are advancing, industry specialization and facility sophistication are inevitable. Patent system is serving as impetus to promote technology development. On the one hand, granting of patent ensure the inventors` incentives to do further research and development by rewarding them in return of their high costs involved in invention. On the other hand, the disclosure of invention information under patent system is conducive to improvement or aggregative advance of invention. Under ”non-discrimination” jurisprudence of patent law, the invention, with novelty, non-obviousness, utility and enablement, is qualified for patent granting, regardless of what technologies used to make it. As a consequence, multiple patents usually contribute to a manufacture process in the technological industries. In view of, industry specialization, an emerging legal issue is whether the down-stream manufacturers would infringe upon patents owned by the up-stream industries through assembling, even though the former have purchased patented components from the latter? This issue is significant to the industries of computer assembly and semi-conductor foundry. Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court has made a benchmark decision about the above-mentioned issue in Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Electronics, Inc., 128 S. Ct.2109 (2008). This decision will provide us with reference for taking advantage of the exhaustion doctrine under Taiwanese patent law to solve the issue in Taiwan. Additionally, in view of facility sophistication, a similar issue may occur when the owner of patented equipment repair this equipment for its continuous operation without notice to the patentee. This situation is also relevant to application of the exhaustion doctrine. In spite of lack of Taiwanese judicial decisions on this issue, the development of U.S. case law is also helpful for interpretation and application of the exhaustion doctrine under Taiwanese patent law to solve the issue.

隨著科技產業的進展，產業的分工化與設備的精緻複雜化乃勢不可免。在現行科技發展下，專利制度無可置疑的扮演著重要的推手角色，一方面專利的授予能使科技產業所投入的高研發成本獲得適當的回收，進而確保產業在未來繼續研發創新的誘因，另一方面，藉由專利相關發明資訊的公開，亦可使同產業或相關產業本於原發明再進行改進或再創新，促進科技之累積發展。由專利法「科技不歧視」之法理而論，任何科技只要具備專利法之專利保護適格（新穎性、進步性、產業利用性、可實施性等），均得申請專利保護，故而反映在現今科技產業方面，任一製程通常均涉及多數的專利。從產業分工化的面向析之，下游產商若向上游產商購置元件以為成品之組裝（例如：電腦業者向主機業者購買電腦主機與相關晶片以組裝成電腦），若上游產商對於成品享有專利保護，則下游產商縱向上游產商購製合法元件，但組裝行為是否構成專利權之侵害？從另一角度言之，即下游產商是否因其購買為合法元件，進而使其利用元件從事組裝之行為亦獲合法之評價。此一議題在電腦及半導體產業實務頗具重要性，雖我國法並無相關之判決，但美國聯邦最高法院Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Electronics, Inc., 128 S. Ct.2109 (2008)一案，對於以權利耗盡原則來處理前述議題，作出指標性的判決，此對我國專利法是否得以或如何以權利耗盡原則處理相類似議題，有著相當大的啟示。另外，由設備的精緻複雜化的面向而論，與前相類似的問題將發生，即設備所有者得否未經設備的專利權人同意，自行修復設備，使原先無法運作的設備繼續運作，此議題亦涉及專利法權利耗盡原則的問題，我國法亦無適當的判決可資參考，美國專利法則長期以來對此議題，經由各級法院反覆檢驗，雖未有一致之共識，其就此議題的發展歷程與立場，亦可供我國法加以借鏡與參酌。