Famous local restaurant Din Tai Fung receives affirmed favorable judgment in second instance proceedings of trademark lawsuit

　Polylight Design Co., Ltd. (“Polylight”) sued Din Tai Fung Restaurant Inc. (“Din Tai Fung”) over the latter’s violation of Taiwan Copyright Act by infringing upon Polylight’s rights in and to the 2-dimensional marks of the cartoon figure mascots, “Paozai” (包仔), “Lungzai” (籠仔), and a frog designed by Polylight.  The Taiwan Taipei District Court found Din Tai Fung and its responsible person not guilty in the first instance proceedings, which was later affirmed by the IP Court in the second instance proceedings.  The case is appealable. 

　Polylight said that it had been designing and making the Din Tai Fung-specific Paozai and Lungzai products under a product development and reciprocal cooperation contract signed with Din Tai Fung since November 25, 2008.  In 2009, however, upon Din Tai Fung’s request, Polylight agreed to waive its rights in registering the 3-dimensional marks of these cartoon figure mascots, but not the 2-dimensaional marks of the same.  Further in August 2015, Din Tai Fung informed Polylight of termination of cooperation between them without Polylight’s consent and had these mascot products manufactured by other suppliers, and therefore, Din Tai Fung plagiarized, reproduced, and adapted Polylight’s device marks. 

　On the other hand, Din Tai Fung argued that they replaced Polylight with other suppliers due to Polylight’s serious short supply and that was why Din Tai Fung terminated their cooperation in August 2015.  According to Din Tai Fung, Polylight had already known about Ding Tai Fung’s development, manufacture, and sale of the mascot related products without commenting on it during their cooperation, but Polylight filed a complaint in October 2015. 

　The Taiwan IP Court reviewed the email correspondence between both sides and decided in favor of Din Tai Fung and its responsible person on the following reasoning:  Polylight indeed had caused short supply and Din Tai Fung had applied for registering the 2D and 3D marks for the “Paozai” and “Lungzai” characters with Taiwan IPO in September 2009 without receiving opposition from Polylight against Din Tai Fung’s application for the 2D marks.  In addition, the mascot products sold under Din Tai Fung’s and Polylight’s cooperation accounted for negligible percentage of Din Tai Fung’s sales.  Therefore, the IP Court negated the copyright infringement motive Polylight alleged against Din Tai Fung.  (July 2017) 
/CCS