Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Yi-fu (
Intellectual property rights' (IPR) champions welcomed the cash rewards, which were the first big handouts in the government's recently re-invigorated scheme to battle counterfeiters.
"It is very good that the government is encouraging informers to stand up and pass on information about counterfeiting operations," said Jeffrey Harris, co-chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei's Intellectual Property Committee and director of Orient Commercial Enquiries, a consulting firm specializing in IPR.
"In other countries offering rewards is the most effective way to combat piracy," he said.
To protect their identity, the informants were not present at yesterday's ceremony in the Ministry of Economic Affairs' auditorium. Lin presented the citations instead to police officers, who stood in for the informants.
The informants gave information that led to the seizure of NT$24 million in illegal goods. In the first raid in March, machinery and NT$14 million worth of computer-game disks were seized from an underground factory in Linkou, Taoyuan County.
The second crackdown on June 15 in Sanhsia, Taipei County, netted gaming disks worth over NT$10 million.
Each informant will receive NT$1 million, plus a bonus based on the value of goods seized. The rewards will be paid in three separate installments, according to a statement from the ministry's Intellectual Property Office yesterday.
The bonus in the first case totals NT$2.45 million and NT$2.06 million in the second case.
Twenty-five percent of the money will be paid when the case goes to the prosecutor's office. Another 25 percent will be paid when the prosecutor completes the investigation into the case. The final 50 percent will be paid when the defendant is found guilty, the statement said.
The government has adopted a range of new measures to combat its image as one of the world's worst IPR infringers. Earlier this year, the maximum reward for informing on large-scale counterfeiting operations was increased from NT$1 million to NT$10 million. At that time the reward for police officers involved in counterfeiting cases was increased to NT$2 million.
Officers can also gain counterfeit-busting reward points that lead to promotions.
The protection of IPR has been a sticking point in Taiwan's relations with other governments. Taiwan was placed on the US Trade Repre-sentative's Special 301 Priority Watch List of serious IPR violators last month for the third year in a row. The nation continues to be the No. 2 source of pirated optical disk material -- CDs, video CDs and DVDs -- in the US.
To get rid of the stigma, the government has pulled out all the stops in a massive legislative push to show that it is serious about IPR. This year, the legislature made crucial amendments to the Patent Law (專利法), the Optical Media Law (光碟管理條例) and the Commercial Label Law (商標法).
On June 6, it was the turn of the Copyright Law (著作權法), which was finally amended to make copyright infringement a public rather than a private crime. This critical change demanded by the entertainment industry now empowers police to initiate arrests against counterfeiters without first receiving a complaint from the rights' holder as was the case before the change.
However, the 53 changes to the law passed by the legislators left many in the industry confused. The Motion Picture Association and the Business Software Alliance have yet to issue their formal reactions to the changes.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure