Trademark Infringement Warning Letter Was Sent Based On a Pending Application
2008/11/26 TaiwanOn November 26, 2008, the Fair Trade Commission, Executive Yuan (FTC) made the decision of fining La Wei-U Food Co., Ltd. NTD50000 (USD1470.00) for sending out trademark infringement warning letters based on a pending application bearing “Ajiyo & Chinese characters & Device The Best Rock Salt” (appl. no.: 095054363).
Regarding the said decision, the FTC noted that as set forth in the Article 24 of Fair Trade Act of 2002, “no enterprise shall otherwise have any deceptive or obviously unfair conduct that is able to affect trading order”. In addition, according to the Article 8(1) of the FTC’s Handling Principles of Issuances of Business Warning Letters for Copyright, Trademark Right and Patent Right Infringement, the issuance of warning letters in the absence of trademark/patent/copyright right is a breach of the Article 24 of Fair Trade Act.
The FTC pointed out that when the punished party sent the warning letters to the informant and its distributors on July 4, 2007, the punished party’s trademark “Ajiyo & Chinese characters & Device The Best Rock Salt” (appl. no.: 095054363) was not yet registered. However, the warning letters indicated that the packages of the informant’s products were similar to the punished party’s “registered” trademark and requested the informant to stop using the said trademark and recycle the related products. Therefore, the FTC confirmed the warning letters issued by the punished party to be illegal and affected trading order.
Organized and translated by Eunice Yang
International Affairs
