The European Chamber of Com-merce in Taipei (ECCT) is organizing a two-day intellectual property rights (IPR) seminar in co-operation with the Ministry of Economic Affairs to promote better IPR protection in Taiwan, officials at the chamber said yesterday.
The seminar will be held next month in Taipei.
"We are bringing in European experts, judges, companies for an exchange with local experts to foster the scenario where it's not issue against issue," ECCT chairman Dirk Saenger told the Taipei Times yesterday.
"This seminar will be an exchange of ideas -- it is not just us pounding the tables and making demands," he said.
Both European and American businesses have been harsh critics of Taiwan's IP record. Infringers are not pursued forcibly enough and when they are, punishments are often too light, the chambers said in their annual reports to the government and in regular meetings.
IPR should not be seen as a them-and-us issue, Saenger said, because strong IPR protection is equally important for Taiwanese companies.
"In the chamber we try to bridge between Taiwan and Europe," Saenger said. "The interests of our members are often also the interests of Taiwan."
The seminar is targeted at an influential audience.
"Two hundred people are expected to attend the two-day seminar on October 7 and 8 at the National Taiwan University conference center," ECCT chief executive officer Guy Wittich said yesterday.
"Government officials, judges, customs officers and police have been invited by the Ministry of Economic Affairs' Intellectual Property Office. The seminar has been directed towards the Taiwanese," he said.
Officials at the office were not available yesterday afternoon to comment on the seminar, but in a recent interview, Margaret Chen (
"We are working hard to improve IPR, as this is an issue that is important for the people of Taiwan and in their benefit," she said.
In November, ECCT is planning an event to highlight another issue of concern -- Taiwan's implementation of WTO agreements since its entry into the organization in January last year. The chamber will co-host a two-day WTO seminar in Taipei with Harvard University.
Harvard academics will present a new publication on how WTO membership has affected China, Taiwan and other countries in the region, and this will be followed by a round-table discussion chaired by the chamber's WTO monitoring committee, Wittich said yesterday.
Prior to the WTO event, the chamber is scheduled to publish its annual position paper, in which it presents its major concerns to the government. It is not expected that the 21 areas of concern represented by the chamber's 21 committees have seen much progress over the last 12 months.
The WTO monitoring committee, for example, has been frustrated by the government dragging its heels over signing the Government Procurement Agreement -- the deadline for signing passed in January -- over a spat with Beijing on terminology. The agreement would open up government infrastructure projects to bids from any WTO member country.
The chamber says Taiwan should live up to the terms of the agreement even before it signs and allow foreign companies to bid for all government projects in a fair and open way.
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