The justice’s legal opinion charges royalties! Intellectual property lawyers battle with copyright scholars, exciting attacks and defenses exposed

This newspaper reported yesterday that Justices Cai Zongzhen, Yang Huiqin, and Zhu Fumei have long refused to comment, but have repeatedly issued "disagreement with legal opinions" in the name of the justices and authorized legal sources to pay for inclusion, sparking heated discussions in the legal community. Lawyer Fan Guohua and copyright expert Zhang Zhongxin engaged in a Facebook battle over this issue. Fan used the "33 Yuan Electric Pot Case" to question whether the three people could retain the authority of their professional titles while advocating charging for private works. Zhang believed that the document was a personal creation, and whether the professional titles were appropriate was another matter. The two argued over whether the document should be surnamed "public" or "private" until the judge was silent.

Fan Guohua first questioned that the three people received the salary of the justices, but refused to comment, and then issued legal opinions and authorized fees in the name of "the chief justice" and "this bench". It should be found out whether the document uses resources such as publicly funded assistants, and whether the copyright belongs to the individual or the Judicial Yuan. He also compared the case of the NT$33 electric cooker. The cleaning team gave the recycled electric cooker with a salvage value of NT$32, which was held on duty, to a scavenging woman. Because they had no right to dispose of it themselves, they were still sentenced for corruption. If the documents of the three people were completed using official resources, the copyright did not belong to the individuals, but they were treated as private works for licensing fees. It also involves whether they have the right to dispose of the results of their work. It cannot be explained just by academic research, otherwise it may be suspected of "not being punished like a scholar-bureaucrat."

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Zhang Zhongxin countered that the three people did not participate in the review, and the document they submitted was not a "concerted opinion" or a "dissenting opinion", nor was it an official document, but rather a personal legal opinion put forward for a specific case. Personal creations can be submitted to journals, included in authorized databases, and receive royalties or profit sharing. This cannot be compared with the disposal of public property by cleaning crews. As for whether it is appropriate to use titles such as "Justice" and "I" is another issue, which does not affect the judgment that the document is a personal creation.

Fan Guohua immediately fired back, saying that the problem is that the three people "received their salaries and did their own thing" and then recognized the legal work results as personal works and then authorized them in exchange for remuneration. If the documents were truly private creations, they should no longer use titles such as "Justice" and "I".

Zhang Zhongxin responded that just because a justice receives a salary, it does not mean that he must make a constitutional judgment that he believes is illegal; even if he does not participate in the review, he can also provide independent opinions on the case that do not have legal effect. Fan Guohua finally asked, "A judge's silence is not as good as that of a chief judge?" and quoted "a drop of ink, a little exposure, the people's fat", sarcastically applying different standards to senior officials and grassroots, it is a modern version of "the punishment is not good for the scholar-bureaucrats".

Fan Guohua is the founding director, presiding lawyer and arbitrator of Zhonglu International Law Firm. He once served as the deputy general manager and chief legal officer of Gigabyte Technology, the deputy director of the Intellectual Property Committee of the All Lawyers Association, and the vice chairman of the Taiwan Trademark Association. He is currently a consultant to the association. He has defended senior executives of Green Energy Technology in insider trading cases, and represented the company and its executives in claims for compensation from responding investors. He has also handled cases involving Chunghwa Picture Tubes shareholder meeting resolutions, South China Yongchang pension, and cases involving trademark infringement, registration and business secrets. His practice spans securities, corporate governance, labor and intellectual property rights.

Zhang Zhongxin has been involved in the field of copyright law for a long time. He has served in the Copyright Committee of the Ministry of Interior and the Intellectual Property Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs for 17 years. From official position to supervisor, he was later transferred to the special committee of the Ministry of Education. Since 2004, he has served as the Copyright Review and Mediation Committee of the Intellectual Property Bureau. He is on the Ministry of Justice’s list of copyright law consulting experts and the Judicial Yuan’s list of entrusted appraisers for intellectual property cases; he also served as an assistant professor at Soochow University Law School and director of the Science and Technology Law Research Center. He currently teaches at National Taiwan University, Soochow University and Taipei University of Science and Technology, and has authored special books such as "Article-by-Article Interpretation of Copyright Law".