TIPS^®  Taiwan Intellectual Property Special

TSAI, LEE & CHEN-P.4

the Patent Law. In the present case, the Plaintiff filed patent application on October 24, 1997. The deadline for the Plaintiff to submit relevant document supporting his priority right should be January 24, 1998. Since January 24, 1998 is Saturday, the deadline shall also extend to Monday, January 26, 1998.Preventive Measures to Seductions of Mainland China's Start-up Chip

Companies

Recently, some newly established foundry companies in Shanghai, China, tried to seduce the employees of Taiwan semiconductor companies. This trend of competition troubles the management of Taiwan hi-tech companies. The most serious thing is that the breach of covenant not to compete clause would threaten the protection of trade secrets of local chip manufacturing companies.

The TIPO urged Taiwan companies looking for legal protection provided in the Trade Secret Act. Article 2 of the Trade Secret Act stipulates that “[t]he secret protected under this Act includes method, technique, process, formula, program, design or other information which can be used for production, distribution or operation. Moreover, this secret shall comply with the following three conditions: (1) not available to the person who often involves with such information; (2) the secret has actual or potential economic value; and (3) the owner of the proprietary right has taken reasonable measure to protect the secrecy of the information.” Moreover, Article 10 of the Trade Secret Act provides that any employee procured the trade secret in an unjust or unlawful method, as well as the third party who uses such stolen trade secret, shall be liable for the proprietor’s damages.

In addition to civil liability, an employee who unlawfully discloses the company’s trade secret might be inflicted himself in the violation of Articles 317 (offence of unlawful disclosure of trade secret), 335 (offence of misappropriation), or 342 (offence of breach of trust) of the Criminal Law and would be sentenced for not more than five years. In spite of the above provisions, it is highly suggested that a local company enters into non-disclosure provisions in the employment agreement with its employees and duly conducts the intellectual property management.

The New Trademark Registration Fee Adjusted as of January 1, 2001
The administrative fee of trademark registration has never been adjusted in accordance with the raise of price index ever since its announcement on July 1, 1994. In order to reasonably reflect the cost of administrative resource, the TIPO revised the Rule of the Administrative Fee of Trademark Registration on November 1, 2000 to adjust the fees. The adjusting of the fee goes up 20% to 60%. The new rule will promulgate since January 1, 2001.