Taiwan's Intellectual Property Court to Open Its Door on July 1

A specialized Intellectual Property Court will officially open its door on July 1, aiming to speed up the adjudication of the intellectual property disputes that often cause the regular courts to bog down due to the specialized nature of these matters. For example, currently the validity of a patent cannot be decided by a regular, civil or criminal court and must be resolved before the Administrative Law Court, causing the dispute process to be split into two separate proceedings, and the civil or criminal court must wait for the result from the Administrative Law Court before it may resume its proceedings to determine civil or criminal liability of a case pending before it. This process has long been criticized by many because it results in unnecessarily lengthy proceedings. The Intellectual Property Court on the other hand will be equipped with technical officers to aid in the determination of, for example, the validity of a patent, and can shorten the lengthy process by as many as two thirds or more of the time it used to take.