Fair Trade Commission and TIPO to Propose Amendment to Fair Trade Act and Trademark Act Respectively to Resolve Dual Legal Regime Concerning Trademark Protection.
E060118Y2 Feb. 2006（E75）
The Fair Trade Act has provided intellectual property protection to trademarks and identification marks to make up the loopholes of the Trademark Act. Though registered famous marks are readily protected by the Trademark Act, Article 20 of the Fair Trade Act expressly includes trademarks as representation symbols that are well known to the relevant enterprises or consumers and protected under the Fair Trade Act.
The Trademark Act protects marks (color, sound, 3-D object or a combination of the above) that are sufficiently perceived by the consumer as marks representing the provenance of the goods (services). The Fair Trade Act protects personal names, trade names, company names, trademarks, product containers, trade dress and symbols which represent a person’s product and are commonly known to the relevant enterprises or consumers.
The problem that most frequently arises in practice is the holder of an infringed mark often resorts to the Fair Trade Act rather than the Trademark Act for prosecuting the infringers because the punishment imposed on the offending act doer by the Fair Trade Act is more severe than that imposed by the Trademark Act with respect to the using of a mark similar to the infringed mark, which leads the consumer to form confused or mistaken belief about the provenance of the product or service. That is, administrative authority is allowed to stretch its power to overly interfere in judicial matters concerning trademark infringement. (2006.01)
/EMA
