A complaint is filed against Hsing Ya Tai Company for improperly disseminating a criminal complaint, in violation of the Fair Trade Law

Chinese Taipei

Case:

A complaint is filed against Hsing Ya Tai Company for improperly disseminating a criminal complaint, in violation of the Fair Trade Law

Key Words:

PROA (Polarized Refrigerant Oil Additive), a copy of the criminal complaint, trademark

Reference:

Fair Trade Commission Decision of June 9, 2005 (the 709th Commissioners' Meeting)

Industry:

Other Chemical Materials Manufacturing (1790)

Relevant Laws:

Article 22 and Article 24 of the Fair Trade Law

Summary:

1. The Fair Trade Commission received a complaint from Tsai Hsun Enterprise Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Tsai Hsun Company), alleding that the respondent Hsing Ya Tai Co., Ltd. (in transliteration) (hereinafter referred to as Hsing Ya Tai Company) has registered the trademark “PROA” in February 1999. In November 2002, Tsai Hsun Company filed an application with Intellectual Property Office, Ministry of Economics to appraise the aforementioned trademark; the aforementioned trademark was officially cancelled in March 2004. However, during the period of appraising and examining the “PROA” trademark, Hsing Ya Tai Company has improperly disseminated a copy of the criminal complaint to all relevant units and trading counterparts, maliciously defamed the complainant’s reputation, a suspicious of violating the Fair Trade Law.
   
2. The investigation found that the respondent Hsing Ya Tai Company has filed the criminal complaint at issue in July 2002 with Shihlin District Prosecutors Office; the defendants of the aforementioned criminal complaint include the responsible person of Tsai Hsun Company, Wang, Hsiu-Feng, also the complainant in this case, and her husband Chen, Tian Lung. Although Shihlin District Prosecutors Office has dismissed aforementioned criminal complaint, but the respondent contended that Shihlin District Prosecutors Office has omitted to examine the violation of Trademark Law by Wang, Hsiu-Feng and her husband. Therefore, the respondent Hsing Ya Tai Company has make an application of reconsideration to the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors’ Office. The Taiwan High Court Prosecutors’ Office transferred the application to Shihlin District Prosecutors Office to be investigated separately. Therefore, it can be certain that the respondent Hsing Ya Tai Company in this case did file the criminal complaint at issue, and not as what has been claimed by the complainant that the criminal complaint is false. Therefore, the action of the respondent Hsing Ya Tai did not meet the requirements as stipulated in Article 22 of the Fair Trade Law and thus did not violate the Fair Trade Law.
   
3. In addition, the investigation also found that the respondent, in response to RT-Mart’s request on giving explanations about the polarized refrigerant oil additive at issue and its market condition, has given a copy of the criminal complaint at issue to RT-Mart. The purpose of this act was to remind RT-Mart of watching out for competition from the counterfeit products. Furthermore, on account of safeguarding its rights, Chang, Yu-Hsiu, the responsible person for the respondent Hsin Ya Tai Company and also the “PROA” trademark owner at that time, has thus given RT-Mart a copy of the criminal complaint at issue and other relevant research reports for its references, it is difficult to conclude there is any deceptive or obviously unfair circumstances. Finally, with regard to the investigation on the related party Min Sheng General Hospital and others of whether they have received a copy of the criminal complaint at issue in this case, the related parties replied they cannot remember details related to the case as it happened a long time ago, furthermore, the relevant projects were not affected by a copy of the criminal complaint at issue. Therefore, it is also difficult to conclude that the respondent has any deceptive or obviously unfair conducts. To sum up, in accordance with the presently available evidences, it is difficult to conclude that the respondent has violated the Fair Trade Law.

Summarized by Chiu, Chia-Yun;
Supervised by Lin, Gin-Lan

Appendix:
Hsing Ya Tai Co., Ltd.’s Uniform Invoice Number: 16781712