經通國際智慧產權事務所

The Supreme Court in Taiwan found that the trademark right of the famous hundred years’ bakery “Yu Chen Chai” (literally translated from Chinese) belongs to the six children and widow of the original owner (Sen-Rong Huang). “Yu Chen Chai” was established in 1877 and the trademark was registered by the ex-owner, Sen-Rong Huang. In 1990, Sen-Rong Huang agreed to let his eldest son, Yi-Zhou Huang to employ “Yu Chen Chai” as the name of a convenience store.

After Sen-Rong Huang passed away in 1999, his widow supported the third son to take over the bakery. With the eldest son’s dissatisfaction, the two parties went into a series of litigations over the bequest.

In 1999, the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office accepted the executed trademark assignment submitted by the widow, Qing-Xiu Huang Lu and validated her to be the legal owner of the trademark “Yu Chen Chai”. Qing-Xiu Huang Lu then filed a lawsuit against her eldest son to prohibit him from employing “Yu Chen Chai” as store, company and domain name. However, the court found that at the time the trademark assignment was executed, Sen-Rong Huang was seriously ill and unable to consciously execute the said document. In addition, the print of Sen-Rong Huang’s stamp shown on the assignment document is different from the print shown on the original application. Thus, the court ruled that the trademark right of “Yu Chen Chai” should belong to all of the original owner’s legal coparceners and the widow is not eligible to claim that her eldest son infringes her trademark right.

A criminal suit of forgery regarding the executed trademark assignment was also filed by the eldest son against the third son and the case is currently pending for investigation.
 

Organized and translated by Jenny Yu

International Affairs