Article 87 of the Patent Act considers the difficulty of burden of proof related to method patents and provides special rules of the Code of Civil Procedure regarding burden of proof. Paragraph 1 provides that under certain circumstances, infringement is presumed to be established while the burden of proof is transferred to the defendant. Only after the presumption rule vested in Article 87, Paragraph 1 is applied, the defendant begins to bear the burden of providing counter evidence or the obligation of submitting documents or things for review. As a result, as for the right holder’s assertion that the defendant infringes the method patent in suit, the presumption rule is not applicable unless it is established that the manufacturing method had not been seen in this country or other countries before the patent application was filed. This results in the reverse of burden of proof. Otherwise, the right holder, who asserts that the causes of liability have been established, should still bear the burden to prove that the defendant infringes the method patent right in suit owned by her.

Burden of proof, presumption, method patent right