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Numerous cases of infringement on visual design copyrights have come to light in society, and regardless of whether they involve complete plagiarism or creative extensions of the thinking or key elements in others' works, all of these cases have a great tendency to become mired in disputes concerning whether they violate the Copyright Act. In the design process, creativity referring to the thinking or key elements in others' works is a commonly seen approach to creative work, but also forces designers to grapple with the difficult question of whether this type of creative approach will lead to infringement problems. Nevertheless, in practical judgments concerning copyright infringement, the infringement ratio has been unclear, and judges' obscure and complex mental impressions can be unfathomable to others. As a consequence, this study focuses on the issue of copyright infringement, and has the goal of determining whether a set of more specific identification standards and procedures could enable the derivation of unambiguous definitions or guidelines for deciding when infringement has occurred.
The total of 38 visual design copyright infringement cases occurring in 2014 serve as this study's research sample. This study performs case analysis, describes the content of the verdict of each case, analyzes the court's approach to determination of infringement and its mental impression and judgment results, analyzes the 38 visual design copyright infringement cases in light of Taiwan’s copyright laws and regulations and an examination of the literature, analyzes infringement judgment models and procedures, and looks for the similar or divergent aspects of these models and procedures.
The following six research conclusions have been derived from the results of this analysis:
1. Key elements of the identification of copyright infringement, 2. methods of judging copyright infringement, 3. contact and substantive similarity in judgment of infringement, 4. rights and their actions that most tend to involve infringement, 5. copyright infringement judgment procedures, and 6.the constituent elements of copyright infringement.
The following recommendations are made as a consequence of the research results: 1. it is recommended that domestic courts provide more detailed descriptions of their mental impressions in their infringement judgments, and develop a set of more specific judgment procedures; and (2) copyright courses should be developed for the high school/vocational high school level in order to boost students' basic knowledge of copyrights.
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