TIPS^®  Taiwan Intellectual Property Special

Benchmark Amount for Appeal to Supreme Court Raised to NT$900,000

The threshold amount of NT$600,000 for appealing to the Supreme Court according to Article 446 of the Code of Civil Procedure was recently raised to NT$900,000 (US$29,032 approximately) in an administrative ruling issued by the Judicial Yuan (Taiwan's judicial branch), starting from October 15 this year. Consequently, from October 15, 1999, disputes involving an amount under NT$900,000 may not be appealed to the Supreme Court.Providing Web Site Links to Pornographic Sites Found Guilty by Court

In a judgment rendered on July 8, 1999, the Hsinchu District Court found a responsible person of a web site providing links to porn sites guilty. The defendant, Fei-Fan Information Technology (“FFIT”), established the “Information Site for the City of Culture and Science” (“Site”) on its computer network. Although the Site is a provider of general searching services and does not contain any improper or pornographic content in its own site, by the use of the search engine, the Site provides links to and allows a net surfer to connect to pornographic sites worldwide. Therefore, the court sentenced the responsible person of the Site to five months’ imprisonment for the crime of violation of public morality, with the sentence suspended for a period of three years.

The judgment shocked many local web sites providing searching services. Companies including YAM, Yahoo! Taiwan, and Kimo all expressed their views that the court’s penalizing the providers of searching services instead of going after the porn sites themselves fails to address the real issue. The search function providers do not display any improper text or graphics in their own sites and merely, as requested by the user, list the porn sites worldwide for his or her connection at his or her own discretion. If such services were to be considered unlawful, the ways in which search function providers provide their services would be greatly affected.

Moreover, from the perspective of freedom of speech, provision of the searching services should not be considered illegal. In addition, the judgment does not address the issue of the existence of the foreign porn sites at all. Should this judgment become final, all such service providers are running the risk of illegality. After the judgment was rendered, Yahoo! Taiwan immediately made a public statement that as the American Constitution protects freedom of speech, the company will not reject the registry of porn sites.

As the defendant has appealed the case, whether the Appellate Court will reverse the judgment based on the right to free speech remains to be seen.Reciprocity Principle Adopted in Protection of Foreign Entities' Trade Secrets