萬國法律事務所

After a long time discussion, the Trademark Law was passed the third reading by Legislative Yuan on May 31, 2011. The effective date of the amended Trademark law will be decided and announced later by the Executive Yuan. This amendment has made a substantial revision on the previous version of Trademark Law, the main issues are listed below:

Expand the scope of trademark protection:

Under the previous version of Trademark Law, a trademark may only be composed and registered by a word, figure, symbol, color, sound, three-dimensional shape or a combination thereof, however, the amended version of Trademark Law has made the motion, hologram, voice and any other distinguished mark protectable. Please note that scent has not been listed as a protectable subject matter under this amendment.

Expand the manner of trademark infringement:

Due to the language under the previous version of Trademark Law, it was disputed whether to sell a trademark infringed product on line will constitute a trademark. The amendment has made it clear that selling trademark infringed products on line shall constitute an infringement.

Cancel the minimum penalty for trademark infringement:

Previous version of the Trademark Law has a minimum penalty for trademark infringement (500 times of the value of the infringed products) which in some cases resulted in unreasonable penalties. Thus, the amendment has cancelled the minimum penalty, and left it for the judges’ discretion in each case.