Wine-Font International Commerce Corp. allegedly disseminated or made untrue statements that were capable of damaging the business reputation of another person, which was in violation of the Fair Trade Law
Chinese Taipei
Case:
Wine-Font International Commerce Corp. allegedly disseminated or made untrue statements that were capable of damaging the business reputation of another person, which was in violation of the Fair Trade Law
Key Words:
patent rights; diagnostic products; damage the business reputation of another person
Reference:
Fair Trade Commission Decision of May 5, 1999 (the 391st Commission Meeting); Disposition (88) Kung Ch'u Tzu No. 074
Industry:
Bio-pharmaceutical Products Manufacturing (2223)
Relevant Laws:
Summary:
Wine-Font Corp., of Princeton BioMeditech, and the complainants are competing distributors of diagnostic products. However, in November 1997, Wine-Font sales people hand-carried documents containing comparisons between the amphetamine diagnostic products sold by Taiwan Yin Ku Co. and Yen Sheng Corp. and the product bearing Patent No. 50944, to the health supplies department of the Armed Forces, and informally explained the differences between the products.
The complainant alleged that according to the results of an assessment of the said patented product against that of the complainants conducted by the Industrial Technology Research Institute at the request by letter of the Panchiao district court, the complainants'products and the product bearing Patent No. 50944 were different in scope. The complainants held that Wine-Font Corp. disseminated or made untrue statements that were capable of damaging the business reputation of another person in violation of Article 22 of the Fair Trade Law.
Counterfeiting is prohibited by law. Thus alleging other person to have engaged in counterfeiting can damage the business reputation of such other person. In this case, Wine-Font was not the patent-owner; its statement did not constitute a proper exercise of patent rights. Although Wine-Font is a distributor of the products in question, it should have investigated the issue and sought legal solutions to the dispute if it suspected that the products sold by the complainants were counterfeits.
In addition, the health supplies department of the Armed Forces is in charge of purchasing amphetamine diagnostic products for the entire armed forces and is one of the major purchasing units on the island. After the invitation to bid was declared invalid, Wine-Font declared that the products of the complainants were counterfeits, damaging the social reputation of the complainants'products and affecting the health supplies department's willingness to purchase from the complainants. The action might easily cause other possible trading counterparts to suspend or discontinue trade with the complainants. Wine-Font's act was thus capable of damaging the business reputation of another person.
Appendix:
Wine-Font International Commerce Corp.’s Uniform Invoice Number: 23723598
Summarized by Lin, Hsiao-hung
Supervised by Li, Yen-hsi