Bid to join Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)

    To facilitate the accession to CPTPP, Taiwan amended the copyright and Trademark acts. The purpose of these amendments is to harmonize the differences regulations between the Trans-Pacific Partnerships and those from Taiwan.

– Copyright Act:

• For safeguard of copyright holders, the new act which is included illegal digital piracy, distribution, and public transmission constituting which are considered an offense that is indictable (without complains), “infringement of work provided not for free by another person”, “reproduction in their original form (100% reproduction)”, “infringements causing damages exceeding one million New Taiwan Dollars” are listed as the three conditions which are determined an instance of serious infringement (Article 100).
• Optical discs are no longer constituted a main source of infringement and are included within the scope of digital piracy defined in amendments to Article 100. Increased penalties under the current law for the indictable offense of reproduction and distribution of pirated optical discs have been deleted, and  revert to general liabilities for reproduction and distribution.
• Corresponding provisions of confiscation and forfeiture have also been deleted accordingly (deletion of Article 91 paragraph 3, Article 91-1 paragraph 3, Article 98, and Article 98-1).

– Trademark Act:

• Subjective condition for counterfeiting labels to be held civilly liable is deleted and revert to “intentional” and “negligent” acts. (amendments to Article 68).
• For the benefits of trademark owners and ensure a protection, criminal provisions for counterfeiting labels of trademarks or collective trademarks have been added. Criminal liabilities is now applied to some preparatory and contributory acts of infringement including the importation of counterfeit labels and packaging of trademarks (amendments to Article 95).
• For counterfeiting labels of certification marks and selling or intending to sell infringing goods, the subjective condition is deleted and revert to “intentional” acts for criminal penalties, which includes indirectly intentional acts that can be foreseen to cause infringement (amendments to Articles 96 and 97).