ABSTRACT
The difficulty for intellectual property right holders to prove their actual loss as a result of infringement is one of the core problems that haunt IP laws and scholars. One solution that arises is statutory damages or pre-established damages. In an effort to explore an Asian model for damages, this chapter first traces the origin of statutory damages, examines the experiences of some Asian jurisdictions in statutory damages, identifies the downsides of such a regime, and then weighs the solutions proposed by the latest large-scale free trade agreements (FTA), the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). This chapter concludes by suggesting that the CPTPP interpret and apply its new mechanism by using the Japanese regime as a benchmark, and RCEP should persist in its current version of having no pre-established damages for copyright infringement and trademark counterfeiting.
