Taipei, 26 September 2017 - The European Economic and Trade Office (EETO) – under the framework of the European Business and Regulatory Cooperation (EBRC) programme – co-hosted the "2017 EU-Taiwan Seminar on Industrial Designs and Trademarks" with the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO). The event gathered 230 participants from Europe and Taiwan, which included regulators, representatives of central and local governments, and patent and law offices. The seminar brought together five government officials from the EU Delegation in Beijing, the TIPO, the Intellectual Property Court of Taiwan, and the Supreme Administrative Court to share experience in four parts which covered: the examination of legal regimes on the invalidity of industrial designs, practices regarding the invalidity of industrial designs, legal regimes regarding trademarks, and trademark practices in the EU and Taiwan. The event was held to increase mutual understanding through discussions.

Ms Thomas Jürgensen, Deputy Head of EEETO and Ms Hong Shu-min (洪淑敏), Director-General of TIPO delivered opening remarks at the seminar.

In his remarks, Mr Jüergensen pointed out that the EU has harmonised industrial design protection across EU countries and introduced the Community design system that offers unitary protection across the EU through a single procedure. He added that in Europe, trademarks can be registered at the national level as a national trade mark or at EU level as a European Union trade mark. The European Commission continually monitors the trademark system in the EU to identify ways to improve its effectiveness and accessibility for businesses.

Ms Hong expressed that Taiwan's design industry has shown its power to the world. Creative products and brands require strong protection of intellectual property. She said that TIPO is working continually on optimising IP regulations and practices to create a better IP protection environment for business. She acknowledged that the EU has always been an important business partner for Taiwan. She pointed out that the organization of EU-Taiwan IPR seminars every year is expected to encourage the development of IP regulations and exchange of practices.

The morning session started with an introduction to the examination of legal regimes and practices on the invalidity of industrial designs in Taiwan. Two Taiwanese experts, Mr Hsu Chia-hung (徐嘉鴻), Patent Examiner for TIPO and Mr Yeh Che-wei (葉哲維), Technical Examination Officer of the Intellectual Property Court of Taiwan, gave presentations on this subject. Following their presentations, another Taiwanese expert, Ms Liu Chen-chen (劉蓁蓁), gave a presentation on the legal regimes for Taiwanese trademarks by highlighting the major developments after the amendment to the Trademark Act in 2011. The morning session was followed by a fruitful Q&A session featuring all three speakers, who answered questions from the audience, and exchanged information about regulations in Taiwan.

In the first afternoon session, Mr Günther Marten, IP attaché at the EU Delegation in Beijing, introduced the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and its work in industrial designs. The second afternoon session focused on the legal regimes and practices regarding trademarks in Taiwan and the EU. Ms Lin Hsin-jung (林欣蓉), Judge of the Supreme Administrative Court delivered a presentation on the latest developments in trademark practices in Taiwan, in which she summarized some major court rulings concerning trademarks in Taiwan. Following the introduction of trademarks in Taiwan, Mr Günther Marten shared two presentations on the introduction to the legal regimes regarding EU trademarks and the latest developments regarding trademark practices in the EU. The session was followed by an interactive Q&A session about trademarks in Taiwan and the EU.