TIPS^®  Taiwan Intellectual Property Special

Soliciting Employees Working for the Industrial Technology Research Institute and Institute for Information Industry Would be Deemed Illegal

The Technology Basic Law (“Law”) has been promulgated since last year. The Enforcement Rule of the Law has recently been completed and will be enacted soon. The most influential provision among the Law is the transfer of intellectual property rights to each research unit/department. Therefore, should any company/enterprise solicit the employees working for the Industrial Technology Research Institute (“ITRI”) and Institute for Information Industry (“III”) would be deemed illegal. The ITRI and/or III would then consider filing actions against the company/enterprise and/or such employees.

The Technology Department, Ministry of Economic Affairs indicated that ITRI and III, as the outstanding non-profit and government-sponsored research institutes, have incubated many excellent human resource, who naturally become the targets of many hi-tech companies/enterprises. Such soliciting has greatly influenced the ongoing research plans conducted by both ITRI and III. Therefore, the most important thing is to figure out a solution to establish a normal channel to transfer the technology and/or research developed by ITRI and III into the enterprises, which solution can also prevent the ongoing project from being interrupted.

The Technology Department further mentioned that, in the near future, if the enterprises wish to retain the employee working for ITRI and III, they should negotiate with ITRI and III regarding the payment of certain royalty. And the royalty collected under the above cases will be equally shared by the Ministry of Economics Affairs and ITRI/III. ITRI has initiated investigation over several cases and will file actions against some companies very soon.