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Updates on business news, court decisions, and regulatory developments

25 January, 2008

2007 Enforcement Statistics Released

The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office released its 2007 statistics this month for IPR Police intellectual property enforcement:

Overall Infringement Cases Identified:    2,280
Trademark Infringement:                   1,193
Copyright Infringement:                  1,087
Online Infringement:                   1,791
Brick and Mortar:                          172
Night Markets:                              155
Marketing:                                8
Manufacturing:                              6
Others:                                148


The figures reflect the overall trend that we have seen in the market for the last few years – the sale of infringing products has moved into the online market place while the manufacturing of such products has moved offshore to "friendlier" jurisdictions.

For more information about this topic, please contact Marcus Clinch at 886-2311-2345 ext. 511.

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Taiwan Intellectual Property Office to Release Draft Amendments to Copyright Act

The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office is expected to release draft amendments to the Copyright Act shortly. The draft bill, titled “Internet Service Provider Liability Limitation Bill”, aims to clarify the liability of Internet service providers for intellectual property infringement occurring on their platforms. Public hearings are being planned for the end of February or early March.

For more information about this topic, please contact Marcus Clinch at 886-2311-2345 ext. 511.

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11 January, 2008

New Tax Preferences for Foreign Professionals in Taiwan

On January 8th, Taiwan's Council for Economic Planning and Development announced new tax preferences for foreign professionals in Taiwan. Employers of eligible foreign professionals will be able to declare non-salary payments and reimbursements to foreign professionals as operating expenses. Examples of expenses include travel and school tuition for children. From the perspective of the employee, the preferential incentive is that these payments and reimbursements will no longer be treated as income for tax purposes.


As a courtesy to the international community in Taiwan, the Winkler Partners Translation Department has translated the official announcement as published in the Executive Yuan Gazette.

Ministry of Finance Order
Ref. Tai-Cai-Shuei-Zih No. 09600511820
8 January 2008

The Scope of Application of Tax Preferences for Foreign Professionals is adopted and is effective from 1 January 2008.

  1. The Scope of Application of Tax Preferences for Foreign Professionals is adopted to accelerate and promote the internationalization of Taiwan's economy and to encourage foreign professionals to come to Taiwan to work.

  2. The term "foreign professionals" in this Scope of Application includes those already working in Taiwan. However, dual nationals concurrently holding ROC nationality and another nationality shall be excluded from the scope of application because of concerns about determination of identity.

  3. The term "tax preferences" in this Scope of Application means expenses paid by an agency, organization, school, or enterprise in the recruitment of foreign professionals by stipulation of the employment contract. Round-trip travel expenses for a foreign professional and his or her dependents, travel expenses for contractually stipulated home leave per certain period of work, moving expenses, utility fees, cleaning fees, telephone fees, rental costs, cost of repair and maintenance of rented premises, and education expenses for children may be recognized as expenses and will not be considered taxable income of the foreign professional.

  4. The persons covered by the Scope of Application will be determined under Article 46, paragraph 1, subparagraphs 1 and 2 of the Employment Services Act and relevant regulations, and will be limited to foreign professionals engaged in the following lines of work:

    1. civil engineering or architecture/construction technology;
    2. transportation;
    3. tax and financial services;
    4. real estate brokerage;
    5. immigration services;
    6. lawyers;
    7. engineers/technicians;
    8. medicine and health care;
    9. environmental protection;
    10. cultural, sports, and leisure services;
    11. academic research;
    12. veterinarians;
    13. manufacturing;
    14. distribution services;
    15. executives of enterprises invested in or set up by overseas Chinese or foreign nationals with the authorization of the Taiwan government
    16. management, design, planning, or consulting relating to professional, scientific, or technical services;
    17. cooks in the food and beverage industry;
    18. other jobs designated by the Council of Labor Affairs, Executive Yuan in consultation with the central-government competent authority for the industry concerned.

  5. A foreign professional enjoying tax preferences as determined under Article 46, paragraph 1, subparagraphs 1 and 2 of the Employment Services Act must reside in Taiwan for at least 183 days in aggregate in the tax year and be paid a monthly taxable salary of NT$100,000 or more. However, if an agency, organization, school, or enterprise has special needs in the recruitment of foreign professionals and these special needs have been reviewed and recognized by the Ministry of Finance on a special-case basis, it may be exempted from the requirement of paying monthly taxable salary of NT$100,000 or more.

  6. Reviews to determine eligibility of foreign professionals for tax preferences shall be done by the local offices of the National Tax Administration, Ministry of Finance. When an agency, organization, school, or enterprise has special needs in the recruitment of foreign professionals, the Ministry of Finance shall first submit the matter to the competent authority for the industry concerned and ask it to provide a review opinion. The Ministry of Finance also may convene an ad-hoc review conference to make the determination.

Ministry of Finance Order
Ref. Tai-Cai-Shuei-Zih No. 09600511821
8 January 2008

Beginning from 1 January 2008, an agency, organization, school, or enterprise (hereinafter, "employer") hiring a foreign professional who meets the requirements of the Scope of Application of Tax Preferences for Foreign Professionals shall do as follows:

  1. The employer shall apply for permission from the Council of Labor Affairs, Executive Yuan under Articles 46 and 48 of the Employment Services Act, and obtain a foreign national work permit issued by the Council of Labor Affairs.

  2. The employer shall keep accounts of, and obtain and keep vouchers for, payments that it makes under stipulations of the employment contract for round-trip travel expenses for the foreign professional and his or her dependents, travel expenses for contractually stipulated home leave per certain period of work, moving expenses, utility fees, cleaning fees, telephone fees, rental costs, cost of repair and maintenance of rented premises, and education expenses for children.

  3. If the employer is one that is required to file a business income tax return, the various expenses specified above may be recognized as operating expenses, and are exempted from being considered taxable income of the foreign national. When preparing the business income tax return for the fiscal year, the employer shall fill out the "Itemized List of Expense Payments Meeting the Scope of Application of Tax Preferences for Foreign Professionals" on the tax return form and file it with the return, and shall present relevant certifying documents for review and verification during auditing by the assessment authority.

  4. If the employer is not required by regulations to file a business income tax return, the various expenses specified above that the employer has paid for a given tax year are exempted from being considered taxable income of the foreign national. The employer shall, by the end of January of the following year, fill out an "Itemized List of Expense Payments Meeting the Scope of Application of Tax Preferences of Foreign Professionals" and file it with the competent assessment authority for recordation.

  5. The "Itemized List of Expense Payments Meeting the Scope of Application of Tax Preferences of Foreign Professionals" is attached in three-part form.

For more information about this translation please contact Paul Cox at +886-2311-2345 ext. 545. To learn more about eligibility for the tax preferences, please contact Marcus Clinch at 886-2311-2345 ext. 511.

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28 December, 2007

Taiwan to Increase Fund Investment Cap for Derivatives to 40%

The Financial Supervisory Commission has announced that it intends to amend Taiwan's Regulations Governing Offshore Funds ("Offshore Regulations") so that the Commission will have the power to set limits on how much an offshore fund registered in Taiwan can invest in derivative products. Previously the investment cap for these products was 15% of the fund's net asset value subject to certain other technical restrictions and restrictions on derivative products based on Chinese or Taiwanese financial instruments. Please see Article 23 of the current Offshore Fund Regulations for further details. The translation is by Winkler Partners.

In the announcement, the Commission notes that its policy objectives include giving the Commission greater flexibility to change the cap in the future and to harmonize the caps for offshore funds and domestic ones.

In its notes to the proposed revision to Article 23, the Commission note that its short term goal is to raise the cap of derivative product investments to 40%. The long term goal is to update Taiwan's fund regulatory regime to comply with European Union's UCITS Ⅲ requirements.

The statutory period of public comment on this amendment expires on 2 January 2008. Please contact Shan Lee at +886-2-2311-2345 ext. 33 for further details.

Winkler Partners has translated and maintained official translations of Taiwan's financial services laws and regulations since 2002. Please contact Paul Cox at +886-2311-2344 ext. 545 for further information.


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18 December, 2007

Taiwan to Establish More Specialized Courts

Taiwan's new Chief Justice Lai In-Jaw announced yesterday (Dec. 17) at a year-end press conference that the Judicial Yuan has drafted legislation that will authorize the Yuan to create new specialized courts with limited jurisdiction to hear cases involving finance, construction, and medical disputes. The Intellectual Property Court, Taiwan's first specialized court, is scheduled to begin hearing cases in July.

The Expert Trial Participation Act bill will now be sent to the Legislative Yuan. It is the second major piece of legislation intended to reform the structure of Taiwan's court system along with the the Organic Act of the Judicial Yuan. But since the current legislative session ends this Friday ( Dec. 21), it is unlikely that either bill will pass until the new Legislature convenes after elections in January.

17 December, 2007

Taiwan to Draft Sentencing Guidelines

The Chinese-language Liberty Times reported today that Taiwan's Judicial Yuan is drafting sentencing guidelines for judges that would recommend quantified ranges for existing statutory criminal penalties. According to the report, guidelines for larceny, telephone fraud, and copyright violations will become effective in July for an evaluation period.

Former Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan and the Judicial Reform Foundation expressed concerns of excessive leniency in sentencing to the Judicial Yuan some three years ago.

For example, larceny in Taiwan is subject to a maximum statutory sentence of five years. However, in practice, 86 percent of convicted offenders receive sentences of less than one year.

Another example is the serious problem of telephone fraud that has plagued Taiwan in recent years. Sophisticated criminal organizations take advantage of lax privacy laws to obtain personal information about consumers from banks, online shopping platforms, or telecoms and then use that information to convince consumers to remit funds using account-to-account ATM transfers.

The maximum statutory sentence is again five years, but in practice over half of all convicted offenders receive sentence of less than six months. Since criminal sentences of less than six months can be (and usually are) converted to a fine, all but the most indigent offenders sentenced to less than six months do not serve time in prison.

Light sentences for intellectual property crimes that are then converted to fines have also been a major complaint of international rights holders for many years. In its 2007 White Paper on intellectual property issues, for example, the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, for example, stated that

The judiciary has not taken advantage of the range of sentencing opportunities made available by the body of Taiwan intellectual property law. Instead, the courts continue to render enforcement of IP laws ineffective by letting off most convicted IP offenders with light, suspended sentences, and low fines that do little to discourage counterfeiting.

The same paper also noted that light sentencing and low fines have been a perennial issue for the Chamber for the last 10 years. In 2006, Judicial Yuan statistics show that 46 percent of those convicted of criminal copyright infringement were either fined or had their sentences of less than six months converted to fines.

In response to these concerns, the Judicial Yuan is drafting a set of Reference Sentencing Guidelines for judges that are inspired by the US's Federal Sentencing Guidelines. It should be noted, however, that Taiwan's Guidelines are not compulsory because they are administrative guidelines promulgated by the Judicial Yuan rather than statutory requirements enacted by the Legislature.

While some judges believe that sentencing guidelines violate judicial independence guaranteed by Article 80 of the ROC Constitution, others believe that Judicial Yuan Interpretation 530 allows the Yuan to issue binding sentencing guidelines without a statutory basis.

The inclusion of sentencing guidelines for violations of the Copyright Act is of special interest to foreign right holders because they are scheduled to come into effect in July when Taiwan's new Intellectual Property Court begins hearing cases.

In a broader perspective, the explicit references to the US sentencing laws by proponents of sentencing guidelines as well as citations of United States v. Booker suggest the growing importance of the US legal system for Taiwan in areas other than commercial law. While economic ties between the US and Taiwan have created a much-criticized hybrid by injecting concepts from the Anglo-American legal tradition into Taiwan's continental legal system modeled closely on German and Japanese law, the proposed guidelines show that legal practices from the US are beginning to seep into areas such as criminal law that have remained closer to their origins in German law.







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19 November, 2007

TIPO Invalidates Trademark Registration of Confucius

A recent wire service news story incorrectly reported that the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) "...has decided to revoke a patent registration request...[for]... the use of the name of the ancient Chinese thinker Confucius." What the TIPO has in fact done is invalidate a trademark registration of the name Confucius by the Office of the Chinese Language Council International, a corporate entity directly administered by China's Ministry of Education.

According to the TIPO, the Chinese Language Council applied to register "Confucius" as a trademark for educational services provided by the Council's international chain of Chinese language teaching centers known as Confucian Institutes. The TIPO published the trademark registration but after publication, the TIPO's internal quality control working group questioned the appropriateness of the registration. An internal review process determined that the name "Confucius" lacked distinctiveness as a marker identifying the origin of educational services and products and TIPO invalidated the registration. The Chinese Language Council is now being asked to submit comments on the invalidation.

If the invalidation is sustained, the Chinese Language Council can appeal to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Should the Ministry deny the appeal, the Chinese Language Council can seek relief by filing an action in Taiwan's administrative courts. It should be noted that Chinese applicants have standing in Taiwan to file for trademark registrations under the TIPO's Operational Points Regarding Application for Patent and Trademark Registrations in Taiwan by Mainland Chinese People and that since 1994, more than 3,000 trademarks have been successfully registered by Chinese applicants.

Despite this invalidation, the TIPO reaffirmed the general principle that historical names such as "Lincoln" and "Franklin" may be registered for products such as cars and mutual funds. It intends to ask for expert opinion on international practice and will use this advice when it amends its Main Points for Examination of Distinctiveness of Trademarks next year.

For further information or to comment in the proposed amendments, please contact Peter Dernbach at +886-2-2311-2345 ext. 222.




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08 November, 2007

Landmark Prosecution for Textbook Copyright Infringement

The Chinese-language United Daily News reported today (8 Nov.) that Taichung prosecutors have indicted a college student for violating Taiwan's Copyright Act by having a print and copy shop make four copies of extensive extracts from a textbook on marketing management. The prosecutors are asking the court to sentence the student to 20 days of detention.

While that sentence is largely symbolic since most sentences of less than six months can be converted to a fine, the prosecution itself is significant because prosecutors have traditionally enforced the copyright against the print shops that accept orders to copy textbooks rather than the students who commission the copying.

The copying of textbooks at print and copy shops located near universities has been a longstanding issue for foreign rights holders. In the past, prosecutors have cited the fair use provisions of Taiwan's copyright law and high textbook prices as reasons not to prosecute students who have textbooks copied. The Taichung indictment is the first of its kind and while prosecutors claimed that evidence connecting the copied textbooks to the accused student compelled them to indict, this milestone indictment suggests increased willingness to enforce Taiwan's copyright law against end users.

For more information in IP enforcement in Taiwan, please contact Christine Chen at +886-2-2311-2345 ext. #307.


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02 November, 2007

EY Approves Draft Amendments to Securities and Exchange Act

The Executive Yuan has approved amendments to Articles 21-1, 36, and 157 of the Securities and Exchange Act and will now send the proposed amendments to the Legislature.

Article 21-1 currently authorizes the Financial Supervisory Commission to enter into agreements with its counterparts in other jurisdictions relating to information exchange, technical cooperation, and law enforcement investigations. Under this Article, the Commission may also request corporations, organizations, and private individuals to provide it with the information it needs to carry out these agreements. The proposed amendment to Article 21-1 makes compliance with the requests compulsory.

Article 36 sets out reporting requirements for listed companies. Currently, listed companies are required to issue audited and certified financial reports within one month of the end of the first and third quarters. In addition, they are required to issue an audited and certified financial report which has also been approved by its board of directors within four months of the close of the fiscal year. In practice, this arrangement creates a six month gap with no financial reporting between the end of October when the Q3 financial report is released and the end of April when the year end financial report approved by the board of directors is issued. The proposed amendment would require year-end financial reports to be issued by the end of March, thereby reducing the six month reporting gap to five months.

Article 36 is also amended to create a mechanism by which listed companies can apply to the Commission to delay issuing their financial reports. Approval may be granted in cases where a listed company has been placed in regulatory receivership or the certifying accountant has been disbarred. These measures are believed to be responses to the collapse of the Rebar Group in early 2007 during which the Chinese Bank, which was controlled by the Group, was placed in in regulatory receivership and accountants who had certified financial reports for Group companies were disbarred. Several Group companies have also been fined for failing to comply with Article 36 reporting requirements.

Article 157 will be amended to impose an 18 hour lockup period after material information is publicly announced during which company insiders cannot trade company shares. The current lockup period is 12 hours. Company insiders are defined as directors, supervisors, corporate officers, holders of more than 10 percent of the company's share and key employees.

While this change is intended to strengthen anti-insider trading regulations after several highly publicized indictments for insider trading by insiders at a major financial group and a high tech company in 2007, the proposed amendments to Article 157 also introduce a new defense against insider trading charges. If a corporate insider can show that she has been making scheduled trades for the same amount for a period of six months before the public announcement of material information, or that identical trades have been made by a set formula during that same period, the trades may not be deemed insider trading.

It should be noted that despite its well-deserved reputation for partisan deadlock, the Legislative Yuan has amended the Securities and Exchange Act in each of the past three years, most extensively in 2005.

For further information on these amendments to the Securities Trading Act, please contact Shan Lee at +886-2-2311-2345 ext. 303.

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01 November, 2007

Draft Finance Company Act Sent to Legislature

Taiwan's Executive Yuan approved its long-awaited draft of the Finance Company Act on Oct. 31st. Drafts of the Act have been circulating between various agencies for more than ten years as the government has tried to find the right formula to meet its two major policy objectives for the legislation: providing new non-bank sources of financing for Taiwan's many and effectively regulating underground loan businesses by allowing at least some to legalize.

According to coverage in the Chinese-language China Times, the Act permits finance companies to make loans, guarantee contractual performance, and discount bills. While maximum annual interest rates for consumers are capped at the 20 percent, corporate interest rates can be as high as 30 percent.

New finance companies will require a permit from the Financial Supervisory Commission to register as a finance company. The Commission will then issue a business license to the duly registered finance company. The draft Act gives the Commission the power to set capital requirements for finance companies, and officials suggested that minimum capitalization could be set at around NT$5 billion (c. US$150 million), noting that in 2006 Taiwan had 48 firms of this scale legally engaged in financing transactions or leasing.

The Act provides that companies currently approved to operate financed leasing, installment purchasing, and accounts receivable financing for ordinary businesses or financial institutions are eligible to become general purpose finance companies.

One of the major purposes of the Finance Companies Act is to regulate Taiwan's underground loan businesses that often employ collection agencies with organized crime backgrounds. Larger illegal loan operations will now have the opportunity to become legal, but the draft Act imposes administrative fines of NT$500,000 (c. US$15,000) to NT$2,500,000 (c. US$75,000) on finance companies that collect debts using force, threats, or invasions of privacy or outsource collections to any third party that engages in these practices.

The draft Act also provides that finance contracts must be written and are void if they set an interest rate above statutory maximums. In addition, finance companies must provide a copy of the written agreement to the guarantor of any finance contract upon request and also must accept early repayment of principal. Without permission from the regulator, finance companies cannot outsource collections or assign debt to third parties.

Finance companies will be required to use the word 'finance' in the names of their firms, and their sales people will need to register with the Finance Company Industry Association.

In related coverage, the paper also interviewed Chailease Finance Co. Ltd.'s Chen Feng-long (陳鳳龍), who said that his firm believed that demand for non-bank financing was worth between NT$300 (US$9.2 billion) and NT$500 billion (US$15.4 billion). Chailease is Taiwan's largest leasing firm. Chen said that if the Legislature passed the draft Act, his firm will apply to become a finance company.

Chen explained that the 24 members of the Finance Company Industry Association are currently allowed to engage only in asset-based financing for corporate customers. Under the draft Act, they would be able to do direct financing as well as lend to consumers. Another important change is that currently a leasing company's total lending capacity to corporate customers is capped at 40% of its net assets. The draft Act does away with that cap.

The draft Act must now be passed by the Legislature to become law. It is expected that although legislators representing various interest groups affected by the draft Act will introduce amendments and possibly alternative versions, there is reason for optimism that it could be passed by the end of the year due to strong industry support.

For more information on the draft or the legislative process, please contact Steve Hanley at +886-2-2311-2345 ext. 620.


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31 October, 2007

Central Bank Issues Procedures for Letters of Credit Funded from China

The Taiwan Central Bank's Department of Foreign Exchange has issued detailed rules for Taiwanese banks to accept remittances from China and issue Letters of Credit to ship goods from third countries to China. The rules were sent to designated Foreign Exchange Banks in an Interpretive Letter dated 22 October 2007. For more information, please contact Shan Lee.

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24 September, 2007

Intellectual Property Court Delayed until 1 July 2008

The Chinese-language media reported last week that Taiwan's long awaited Intellectual Property Court will not begin hearing cases until July 1, 2008. The new court was originally expected to begin hearing cases in August 2007, but that date was pushed back until January 2008 last month.

According to these reports, Kao Hsiu-chen (高秀真), director of the Judicial Yuan's Department of Administrative Litigation and Discipline, has announced that the Intellectual Property Court's Preparatory Office is now up and running but will need 10 more months to be certified and complete renovations.

The Intellectual Property Court will sit in Banciao, Taipei County's administrative seat, where it will hear civil, criminal, and administrative disputes over intellectual property. For civil disputes, the court will serve as both the trial court and the appellate court. The Supreme Court will be the court of last resort for civil IP matters.

Criminal IP complaints, however, will continue to be heard in ordinary District Courts while the new IP Court will be the intermediate appellate court. The court of last resort in criminal IP cases will be the Supreme Court.

Administrative IP cases will be heard by the IP Court in the first instance with the Supreme Administrative Court directly hearing appeals as the court of last resort.

Kao noted the importance of intellectual property to Taiwan by observing that Taiwanese inventors ranked fourth for the number of patents filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2005. Taiwan also files significant numbers of patent applications in the EU, Japan, and South Korea.


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19 September, 2007

Personal Data to be Removed from Judicial Yuan’s Online Case Database

Marcus Clinch

The Judicial Yuan has maintained a public and searchable database of criminal, civil, and administrative court decisions in Chinese since 1988. The Judicial Yuan, however, announced in July 2007 that personal data would be redacted effective 1 July from judicial decisions available through the database citing privacy considerations. The ease at which the public could access judicial decisions through the Judicial Yuan’s online portal had led to a growing number of complaints in recent years from parties to the decisions over the availability of their personal data. Some specific personal data - national identification numbers, birth dates, and residential addresses - had previously been removed from cases published online.

The Judicial Yuan has relied on following the spirit of the Computer Processed Personal Data Protection Act to support the change in policy. Under the Act, personal data means a natural person's name, date of birth, national identification number, special features, fingerprints, marital, family, education, occupation, health, medical history and financial status, social activities and other data which is sufficient to identify such person. The Judicial Yuan has indicated that names, national identification numbers, birth dates, residential addresses telephone numbers and bank account numbers will be removed. The most notable effect will be that it will no longer be possible to identify the individual parties to judicial decisions within the online database.

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04 September, 2007

Top 1000 Taiwanese Corporations in China

An very useful directory of Taiwanese corporations in China has been published by the Taiwan-based China Credit Information Service since 2004 under the title Top 1000 Taiwanese Corporations in China. The 2006 edition was released in July 2007.

The directory, which is essentially a database published in book form, gives basic company details including company names and addresses in English and simplified Chinese as well as basic financial details sash as sales, assets, and capitalization. Unfortunately, there is no discussion of the sources for this financial information, nor is any of this information available on China Credits website. A CD-ROM version of the database comes with the book.

Despite these caveats, this is an essential reference work on Taiwanese investment in China. Taiwanese businesses are estimated to have invested more than US$100 billion in China, yet these major players are little understood by their North American and European counterparts despite their pervasive presence.

According to the publication page, Top 1000 Taiwanese Corporations in China is available for US$50 and inquiries may be to service@ccis.com.tw. This publication is not listed in the books section of China Credit's website. Its ISBN number is 978-957-8398-99-3.

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17 August, 2007

Xbox Game Pirates Fined NT$8.88 Million

In another case demonstrating the increased willingness of Taiwanese courts to award relatively heavy damages in IP piracy cases, the Miaoli District Court has fined the operators of a business selling pirated Xbox games online NT$8.88 million (US$277,000). Xbox maker Microsoft had sued the defendants for copyright and trademark infringement after police seized more than 2,000 optical disks with pirated games. Microsoft had claimed damages of NT$302 million (US$9.4 million).

In June of this year, the Taoyuan District Court convicted an online dealer in unauthorized software and awarded NT$740 million (US$22.7 million) in damages to 10 international rights holders.

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08 August, 2007

Intellectual Property Court Delayed

Although an official announcement has not yet been made, Winkler Partners has confirmed with the Judicial Yuan that Taiwan's long-awaited Intellectual Property Court will not begin hearing cases until January next year at the earliest. The Court had been scheduled to begin operations this month.

The Yuan attributes the delay in the opening to the Legislature's delay in passing in the 2008 general budget.

The new court,which will be seated in the New Banciao Station Tower in Banciao City Taipei County, will have 10 judges and an initial docket of some 1,700 cases, according to Chinese-language media reports. The judges will be assisted by technical personnel drawn at in part from the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office's corps of patent examiners.

The court is expected to have a major impact on IP enforcement in Taiwan, and many rights holders have been holding back complaints so that they can be heard by the new court.

For more information about Taiwan's Intellectual Property Court, please contact Peter J. Dernbach at +886-2-2311-2345 ext. 638.


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02 August, 2007

Draft Financial Services Act Released by FSC

The Financial Supervisory Commission has released its long-awaited draft of Taiwan's Financial Services Act (Chinese only). The draft law is intended to create a unified legal framework for the provision of financial services in Taiwan including banking, securities, futures, and insurance. This unified legal framework is the legislative counterpart to the Commission's unified supervision of the entire financial industry since 1 July 2004. The draft is accompanied by an extensive commentary. The draft bill has been approved by the Executive Yuan and sent to the Legislature.

For further information about the draft Financial Services Act, please contact Chih-Shan Lee at +886-2-2311-2345 ext. 333..

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25 July, 2007

Resident Visa Alert-UK TRO

Applicants for resident visas in the UK should note that unlike most other de facto Taiwanese embassies overseas, the Taipei Representative Office in the UK requires a UK criminal background check and a health certificate for resident visa applications in addition to the usual documentary requirements. This includes resident visa applications for white collar workers who are applying on the basis of a work permit. We recommend always calling ahead to your local Taiwanese embassy to check on special requirements they may have.

Taiwan Business Topics, a publication of the American Chamber of Commerce, recently reported that that Chung Hwa Travel Service, Taiwan's consular office in Hong Kong, has been requiring all visa applicants to supply proof of residence in their home country in the form of a driver's license, recent utility bill, or bank statement since 2005.

For more information on immigration and labor issues in Taiwan, please contact Tina Chen at +886-2-2311-2345 ext.638

Disclaimer: The foregoing information is time sensitive and subject to change at any time.


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12 July, 2007

P2P Amendments to the Copyright Act Become Law

The Legislative Yuan passed proposed amendments to Taiwan's Copyright Act in June broadening the scope of the definition of copyright infringement to include the provision of software or services for profit that enable the unauthorized public transmission or reproduction of copyrighted works via the internet. The key element of the offense is the inducement of the public to infringe and not any actual infringement by the public.

The amendments, which came into force on 14 July 2007, will, however, have little serious effect on the local market and seem to have passed more to placate concerns raised in the USTR’s annual Special 301 report. The two major illicit file sharing services that spurred the amendments, Kuro and EZPeer, both settled cases with the IFPI in 2005 and now operate legitimately. And it appears that the sites that sprung up to replace them to cater to the local market’s taste for pirated content have set up offshore.

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16 January, 2007

The Securities and Futures Bureau has published translations of amendments to the following regulations on its online collection of laws and regulations in English translation:

Winkler Partners has translated these laws and regulations for the Bureau since 2001.

For more legal background on Taiwan's financial services markets, please contact Shan Lee at ext. 333. For more information on the Winkler Partners financial services translations, please contact Paul Cox at ext. 545.

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