| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 科技法律研究所 === 98 === This thesis addresses the impact of indirect infringement liability on Taiwan’s Automotive Electronics Industry under 35 U.S.C. §217. Pursuant to the said law, there are two types of indirect infringement: the induced infringement and the contributory infringement. 35 U.S.C. §217 Section (b) defines induced infringement as when someone, without a valid license, actively embarks some positive actions such as advertisement, offering for sale or other means to induce people to carry out a direct patent infringement. Regarding contributory infringement, it can be alleged while someone, without a valid license plays a positive role as engaging in selling, offering for selling, or importing a component which constituting a material part of a patented invention and not a staple article of commerce for the purpose of being used by other people. By analyzing the legal precedents of court cases in the United States, this thesis attempts to provide insights for understanding the key constitutive elements of indirect infringements so as to send warning message to Taiwanese contractors in advance in a correct and precise manner before any legal action was taken against them. Moreover, three contract operation models commonly seen in the automotive electronics industry, i.e. OEM, ODM, and OBM will be addressed to evaluate what kind of conducts will fall into the interpretation of the Article. By means of the evaluation, it is hoped that a preferable solution can be come up for employees in the automotive electronics industry to mitigate the impact brought by indirect infringement so as to reduce the huge lost incurred by the patent infringement litigation. Besides, Taiwan Intellectual Property Office has recently proposed a Patent Act Amendment addressing indirect infringement. This thesis will probe into the appropriateness of such new policy, taking the viewpoint of the industrial sector, as well as the perspective of legal practitioners, with an aim to provide some suggestions for TIPO’s reference to better Patent Act.
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