Taiwan and France declared to extend cooperation in trademark and patents

Source: Economic Daily News 12/07/2000

Translated by Y. W. Hsiao

    The Intellectual Property Office, the French Industrial Property Office and the French Institute in Taipei held a symposium entitled “Protecting Intellectual Property Rights” on December 8, 2000 where the legal practitioners, the directors of the police office, the Fair Trade Commission and the Board of Foreign Trade were invited. Besides the official representatives, LVMH and Cartier, both world-famous French brands, sent representatives to attend the meeting. The IPO and FIPO co-declared to enforce the prior protection on patent and trademark rights: therefore Taiwan’s patent and trademark applications filed in a third country can enjoy a prior right in France and vice versus. Mr. Chen, the General Director of IPO, reached a consensus with the French on his visit to France. Both agreed, through bilateral consultation, to set up a complete acknowledgment system which would provide each other with the original data of various trademarks and brands so as to protect the companies’ images by means of correct information and further protect the benefits of consumers in Taiwan. In addition, with regard to biotechnolgy, the inventions of all kinds of microorganisms, vaccine, organism duplicate technologies such as genetic technology, gene alternation engineering, and yeasts were all within the scope of the bilateral patent protections.