A complaint was filled against Jenn Feng Electric Industrial Co., stating that the company mailed out letters warning against patent infringements which violated the Fair Trade Law

Chinese Taipei


Case:

A complaint was filled against Jenn Feng Electric Industrial Co., stating that the company mailed out letters warning against patent infringements which violated the Fair Trade Law

Key Words:

patent rights; warning letter; obviously unfair

Reference:

Fair Trade Commission Decision of March 17, 1999 (the 384th Commissioners' Meeting); Disposition (88) Kung Ch' u Tzu No. 031

Industry:

Manufacturing and Repair of Other Electrical and Electronics Equipment (3190)

Relevant Laws:

Articles 24 and 41 of the Fair Trade Law

Summary:

  1. Jenn Feng Electric Industrial Co. sent letters of notice through fax and by mail to the complainant' s downstream suppliers, urging these suppliers not to purchase products from the complainant; otherwise, the suppliers would violate the law and patent rights. The competitiveness of the complainant was allegedly adversely affected, and a complaint was thus filed with this Fair Trade Commission (this Commission).

  2. According to investigations conducted by this Commission, Jenn Feng Electric, prior to sending out the warning letters, had neither a court decision on patent infringement, nor an infringement assessment report from a fair and objective assessment institution. In the letters, Jenn Feng Electric also failed to clearly state the contents and scope of its patent rights and the facts relating to the infringement; the recipients were thus unable to reasonably determine from the contents of the letters whether there had been actual infringements of patent rights.

    Upon receipt of the letters and possibly to avoid litigation, the recipients stopped selling the aforementioned products irrespective of whether the letters'
    contents were true. This obstructed the complainants' sales channels and lead to unfair competition among enterprises. There obviously was disruption to the normal business operations of Jenn Feng Electric' s competitor and to the market trading order. This damaged the competitive mechanisms of quality, price and services that constitute the nature of the market order. The aforementioned action was obviously unfair to competitors who abide by the principles of fair competition.

  3. The act in this case of sending warning letters was not a proper way to exercise patent rights and was obviously inconsistent with business competition ethics. The aforementioned act violated Article 24 of the Fair Trade Law (the Law) and is thus disposed pursuant to the first part of Article 41 of the Law.

Appendix:

Jenn Feng Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.'s Uniform Invoice Number: 43244477

Summarized by Lu, Li-nah

Supervised by Yu, Su-su


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