Taiwan and China are working to protect cross-strait intellectual property rights, according to the Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs. “An agreement on IPR protection is set for signing during the fifth round of talks between Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation and its mainland Chinese counterpart the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait,” TIPO Director-General Wang Mei-hua said recently. “IPR protection is vital to a nation's competitiveness and business interests,” Wang said. “Taiwan stands to benefit greatly from the planned agreement.” Increasing exchanges between both sides of the strait have given rise to numerous issues relating to IPR protection. These include product counterfeiting, copyright infringement, trademark defense and false product labeling. Starting two years ago, the ROC government began holding IPR protection forums through private entities in an effort to engage mainland officials on this issue. “As Taiwan is mainland China's seventh largest trading partner and fifth largest investor, we believe it is necessary to establish an agency-to-agency mechanism for providing direct, effective and immediate resolution of IPR disputes,” Wang said. Over the past five years, Taiwan-based firms have filed a total of 109,510 patent and 34,113 trademark applications with Chinese authorities. To date, TIPO has handled only a fraction of these numbers for firms originating from the other side of the strait. In addition to protecting patents, trademarks and copyrights, the two sides will also work to include plant breeders' rights and the reciprocal granting of priority rights for patenting and trademark applications. According to Wang, priority rights refer to a time-limited right granted to patent and trademark applicants that allows them to file subsequent applications in other countries within one year and six months, respectively, after their initial applications. Taiwan and China have been denying each other such rights over sovereignty concerns, up until now. “Priority rights are especially critical to industries that rely heavily on R&D efforts,” Wang said. “Firms in other sectors will also benefit as this will prevent the pre-empting of trademark registrations on the mainland.”
