President Starbucks Coffee Corp (
"The US headquarters directly commissioned its local attorney to file a complaint over E-Coffee's trademark registration, as the similarity in logos misleads consumers," President Starbucks' public relations officer Bonnie Chao (趙仁安) said yesterday.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
The case is currently under investigation, Chao said.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
She said that President Starbucks only found out about its US counterpart's intention to file a complaint on Thursday.
Chao said that she could not comment further, as President Starbucks does not have any involvement in the complaint.
President Starbucks, a 50-50 joint venture, has over 142 outlets across the nation, according to the coffee operator.
The US coffee giant lodged a complaint in October last year to the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs over E-Coffee's trademark registration, saying that the similarity would confuse consumers.
E-Coffee has not yet responded to the complaint, the IPO's section chief Chang Hui-ming (
Since the investigation is still at an early stage, the IPO may require more than a year to reach a decision, Chang said.
Starbucks in the US is reportedly also considering complaints against E-Coffee outlets in a number of other countries, including Hong Kong, China, Singapore, and Japan, where E-Coffee's trademark is registered.
E-Coffee, which has more than 280 franchised outlets, denied that its logo is misleading or infringes upon Starbucks' trademark, according to a report in the Chinese-language media citing the company's president Sam Yen (顏文山).
"We are not the only coffee store in Taiwan using a logo featuring dual circles," Yen is reported to have said.
A number of coffee chain stores, including Barista Coffee (西雅圖咖啡) and IS Coffee (伊是咖啡), use circle motifs in their logos.
E-Coffee's logo features a cup of steaming coffee, which is not at all similar to Starbucks' mermaid with curly hair, Yen said.
Yen said that E-Coffee will not settle the dispute unofficially, and does not rule out the possibility of filing a lawsuit if the IPO delivers an unfavorable ruling.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the