In order to facilitate Taiwan’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), TIPO has proposed amendments to the Copyright Act and the Trademark Act based on differences in regulations found in 2016 between the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement (CPTPP’s original incarnation) and those of Taiwan. As the review procedure of the proposed amendments were not finished by the Legislative Yuan during the previous (9^th) term, they were resubmitted to the Executive Yuan in 2020 and have just been approved by the 3787^th meeting on January 20^th, 2022. The drafts have been submitted to the Legislative Yuan for review and once ratified into laws, will be able to enhance deterrence against copyright and trademark infringement, further protect the interests of consumers and copyright holders, and facilitate Taiwan’s international participation and regional competitiveness in economic trade.

Main draft amendments to the Copyright Act:

To better safeguard the rights of copyright holders, amendments have been made such that instances of illegal digital piracy, distribution, and public transmission constituting a serious infringement are now considered an offense that is actionable without complaint (i.e., indictable), and “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 for determining an instance of serious infringement (amendments to Article 100).

As optical discs no longer constitute a main source of infringement and are included within the scope of digital piracy defined in amendments to Article 100, the increased penalties under the current law for the indictable offense of reproduction and distribution of pirated optical discs have become redundant and thus been deleted, and will 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).

Main draft amendments to the Trademark Act:

According to the existing Trademark Act, the subjective condition for counterfeiting labels to be held civilly liable is that the acts were carried out “knowingly.” This condition has been deleted and will revert to “intentional” and “negligent” acts, i.e. the subjective conditions for general civil damages (amendments to Article 68).

To enhance the sales and profit of trademark owners and ensure the protection of trademarks, criminal provisions for counterfeiting labels of trademarks or collective trademarks have been added, and criminal liabilities now apply to some preparatory and contributory acts of infringement including the importation of counterfeit labels and packaging of trademarks (amendments to Article 95).

With respect to counterfeiting labels of certification marks and selling or intending to sell infringing goods made by another person, the subjective condition for these acts to be held criminally liable is that the acts were carried out “knowingly.” To meet social expectations of justice, this subjective condition has been deleted and will 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).

• Publish Date : 2022-02-23
• Update : 2022-09-06
• Organization : International Legal Affairs Office
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