Newsletter
Reverse Doctrine of Equivalents Removed from Taiwan Patent Infringement Assessment Guidelines
The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office published new Patent Infringement Assessment Guidelines in February 2016 to replace those released in 2004. The Guidelines serve as a reference for courts in judging patent infringement cases. In the 2016 Guidelines, the provisions on "reverse doctrine of equivalents" that appeared in the 2004 Guidelines have been deleted.
In the 2004 Guidelines, where the apparently literally infringing product or method is so far changed in principle that it achieves substantively the same function or result in a substantially different way, the reverse doctrine of equivalents applies and non-infringement should be found. The reverse doctrine of equivalents is a non-infringement defense based on an equitable principle for preventing unwarranted extension of a claim beyond fair scope of the patentee’s invention.
The courts in this or other countries rarely approve of use of the reverse doctrine of equivalents. Furthermore, in this country, where a feature achieves substantively the same function or result in a substantially different way from that of an accused product or method, the courts tends to resolve the issue by constructing the feature to not literally read on the accused product or method in view of intrinsic and/or extrinsic evidence. Thus, the "reverse doctrine of equivalents" is abolished in the 2016 Guidelines.