An Empirical Study on the Damage Award of Patent Infringement in the U.S., Taiwan and China

It is concluded that: (1) Court decisions indicate the differences of the legal infrastructures,
the experience of judges, the enforceability of patent types and market
structures among different jurisdictions. The U.S. courts are more inclined to
recognize the evidences on a relatively broad and reasonable basis, nevertheless,
the courts of Taiwan and China are considered less experienced in such decisions.
(2) The party bearing the burden of proof finds the uncertainty of convincing evidence
and also the risk of disclosing proprietary information, thus it results that the
damages are primarily statutory provisions in China. Furthermore, Taiwan’s courts
tend to utilize objective, though may not be proper, financial data as the base for
damage measures. (3) Small damages are commonly granted in the courts of Taiwan
and China. (4) In China, most of the patent lawsuits occurred among domestic
companies with the new model and design patents, only very limited cases are associated
with invention patents. So far as most international firms are concerned,
instead of seeking monetary compensations, their litigations are mainly focused on
acquiring the market shares by preventing the distribution of infringing products in
China, and in the meantime, reducing the exportation of infringing products from
China. It therefore leads to the frequent use of administrative enforcement, injunctions
and boarder measures, in lieu of the damage claims in the judicial courts