Local real estate agent wins an award of damages in Fair Trade Act violation lawsuit

A local real estate agent, Taiwan Realty Estate Co. (Chinese: 台灣房屋; hereinafter “Taiwan Realty Estate”) brings a suit to Taiwan IP Court against HouseFlow Co., Ltd. (Chinese: 住通科技股份有限公司; hereinafter “HouseFlow”) for infringement by the real estate information searching system established by the latter (app.houseflow.tw; hereinafter the “subject system”).  Taiwan IP Court decided that HouseFlow violated the Taiwan Fair Trade Act by exploiting Taiwan Realty Estate’s information in regard to the sale and tenancy of real estate posted by Taiwan Realty Estate and thus HouseFlow should pay TWD300,000 to Taiwan Realty Estate and also remove and never use any information owned by Taiwan Realty Estate and should also remove “Taiwan Realty Estate Co.” from the list of HouseFlow’s cooperating agents. 

The subject system serves as a search platform that compiles and provides the sale information of real estate objects, and it controls access thereto by paid membership only.  Members of the subject system can conduct a search on the system by entering specific conditions (such as, intended road section, intended price and square feet, and intended real estate agent).  After search and comparison by the system, the sale information of matched real estate objects retrieved from the public information posted by the local leading real estate agents will come out. 

According to Taiwan Realty Estate, HouseFlow without authorization misappropriated the information in regard to the sale and tenancy of real estate posted by Taiwan Realty Estate on their official website and used such information as that held and maintained at the subject system, which would cause consumers to mistakenly believe that Taiwan Realty Estate and HouseFlow had cooperation relationship.  Without contributing any labor, time, and cost to develop any real estate information, HouseFlow obviously violated the Taiwan Fair Trade Act by directly taking advantage of another’s work results to gain profits. 

HouseFlow maintained that the information held and maintained at the subject system is all that made public and available on the websites of Taiwan Realty Estate and other real estate agents.  HouseFlow has never illegally intruded in Taiwan Realty Estate to obtain any information that has never been made public by Taiwan Realty and has never exploited another’s work results, either.  Neither engaged in the business of real estate agency service nor a competitor of Taiwan Realty Estate, HouseFlow does not violate the Taiwan Fair Trade Act. 

The IP Court established the fact alleged against HouseFlow that HouseFlow exploits the sale information posted on Taiwan Realty Estate’s website and uses it as their own information so as to solicit more members and to collect more membership fees.  By the foregoing acts of exploiting another’s work results, HouseFlow have caused an adverse impact on the trading order and that has constituted a circumstance unfair to other people who do business in compliance with fair competition.  Therefore, HouseFlow has violated Article 24 of the pre-amended Fair Trade Act and Article 25 of the current Fair Trade Act.  (January 2016) 
/CCS