Supreme Administrative Court ruled IPO faulted in the CPBL trademark similarity case

Source: Liberty Times 11/27/2001
Translated by Jem Chung

　The U.S. Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. considered that Chinese Professional Baseball League’s trademark is an imitation of that of its own, but the Taiwan IPO of MOEF approved the trademark at issue out of “temporary negligence”.  In this respect, the Supreme Administrative Court recently pronounced its judgment rendering the IPO the defeated party because it had faulted in the process of examination.  The said judgment pointed out that the IPO should have had made an overall observation of the trademark at issue at different time and space during the examination so as to see if it is similar to the trademark of the U.S. Professional Baseball League, and that only by this way will the IPO be able to make the best judgment and thus to prevent the general public from being confused by the two trademarks.

　On the other hand, the IPO expressed that the trademark adopts the principle of territory, which denotes that unless the trademark of MLB is already registered in Taiwan or is qualified as a well-known trademark according to the “Main Points for Determining a Well-Known Mark”, the Major League Baseball Properties Inc. cannot sue the CPBL over violation of law.