Newsletter
COURT MAY GRANT REVERSE INJUNCTIONS IN IPR IN-FRINGEMENT CASES
Article 61 Paragraph 1 of the Trademark Law provides that a trademark owner may claim damages from an infringer for infringement, and may request for removal of such infringement and where there is a likelihood of infringement, he may request its prevention. The Copyright Law (Article 84) and the Patent Law (Article 88 Paragraph 1, Article 105, and Article 122) con-tain similar provisions regarding copyrights, in-vention patents, utility model patents, and design patents. Under the above provisions and the relevant provisions of the Code of Civil Proce-dure, a registered trademark owner, patentee, or copyright holder may petition the court for an injunction ordering an alleged infringer to refrain from infringing acts. The right to make such a petition is undisputed in court practice.
But if an alleged infringer asserts that he is committing no infringement, can he in turn seek a reverse injunction requiring the trademark owner, patentee or copyright holder to tolerate, for the time being, his continuation of the alleged infringing acts or related commercial activities, and forbidding the latter to take any interfering or obstructive action? The Trademark Law, Patent Law and Copyright Law are silent on this point. But in two recent civil cases—a trademark infringement case and a patent infringement case—the Supreme Court, affirmed that an al-leged infringer could seek such an injunction. It can also be inferred that courts are also likely to grant such reverse injunctions in copyright or other IPR infringement cases.