Patent rights and trademarks of many renowned Taiwanese agricultural products have been infringed upon by Chinese traders, a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator said yesterday.
The infringement of trademarks of local products like Kukeng coffee and Chihshang rice was seriously undermining the rights of local farmers, DPP Legislator Lin Yun-sheng (林耘生) said.
He called on the DPP administration to take strong action.
Lin claimed trademarks for famed products such as wine from Puli, Hsinchu rice noodles, Hsiluo soy sauce, Tungting oolong tea and Tungkang seafood had been registered by Chinese traders with the Beijing authorities.
Lin said that Taiwan and China are members of the WTO and that disputes over trademarks and patent rights should be dealt with under the WTO framework.
Nevertheless, the Chinese authorities had evaded talks with their Taiwanese counterparts in international forums, Lin added.
Huang Pei-hsun, a section chief from the Agriculture and Food Agency (AFA) under the Council of Agriculture, said the agency would sponsor a ministerial meeting to work on ways to resolve the matter.
The Mainland Affairs Council and other government agencies would be present at the meeting, Huang said, adding that they would consider sending representatives from the tea industry to China with government assistance to seek protection for their products.
Council official Chen Chun-hung said that if Taiwan and China resume dialogue, the council will help farmers seek protection for their products in China.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
BACK TO WINTER: A strong continental cold air mass would move south on Tuesday next week, bringing colder temperatures to northern and central Taiwan A tropical depression east of the Philippines could soon be upgraded to be the first tropical storm of this year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, adding that the next cold air mass is forecast to arrive on Monday next week. CWA forecaster Cheng Jie-ren (鄭傑仁) said the first tropical depression of this year is over waters east of the Philippines, about 1,867km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), and could strengthen into Tropical Storm Nokaen by early today. The system is moving slowly from northwest to north, and is expected to remain east of the Philippines with little chance of affecting Taiwan,
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