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Supreme Administrative Court Overrules Delta Lingerie’s Appeal on Darjeeling Certification Mark Dispute
The Supreme Administrative Court in Taiwan overruled an appeal brought by Delta Lingerie for the Darjeeling mark on December 8, 2011. The case is therefore final and ends the long-term trademark dispute that involves the issues of certification mark, Geographical Indication and well-known trademark.
The Supreme Court denies that there is any finding of violation of laws in the subordinate court’s decision. For the right holder of the Darjeeling certification mark, the Tea Board of India, the outcome of the case is a landmark victory for the Darjeeling mark among similar disputes in other jurisdictions. For more information about this case, please refer to the January 2010 and July 2011 issues of TIPS, or contact us to obtain the relevant articles.
Judicial Yuan relaxes adjudication timelines for IP Court
In view of the increasing volume of cases at the IP Court and the resulting increase in workload of the IP judges, the Judicial Yuan on November 29, 2011 decided to relax the timelines for adjudication of cases pending at the IP Court as follows:
For first instance civil cases, the timeline to adjudicate and close a case is relaxed from 150 days to 190 days.
For appellate instance civil cases, the timeline to adjudicate and close a case is relaxed from 170 days to 200 days.
For appellate instance criminal cases, the timeline to adjudicate and close a case is relaxed from 105 days to 120 days.
Based on the latest monthly statistics on the court’s performance, the IP Court takes 183.3 days to close a civil case at the first instance and 219.3 days to close a civil case at the appellate level, while 89.1 days are needed for a criminal case. Patent cases generally dominate more than half of the civil cases at the IP Court.
The adjustment of the adjudication timelines reflects the demand of interested parties in litigation practice, in order to realize both efficiency and quality in IP Court judgments.
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