Intellectual property officials were urged at a press conference yesterday to revoke the taike (
The taike trademark became a debated issue when concert promoter Bring Seven in One (七色一味) was forced to change the name of a music party last Saturday in Hualien from "Tai Ke Rock Concert" to "East Coast Rock Concert."
"It's sad that local artists can't use the term taike anymore," Kuo Chi-chou (
derogatory
Taike, originally a derogatory term used by Chinese who fled to Taiwan with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in 1949 to describe Taiwanese, was redefined in recent years as an expression of strong national consciousness and Taiwanese cultural elements.
Lin said that taike should be regarded as a kind of "public good" or "cultural good" and no one should be allowed to monopolize the usage of the term.
"Making taike a registered trademark is detrimental to popular culture," Lin said.
She said that members of the public might face an infringement lawsuit if they used the term in symposiums, music competitions, or film festivals or in the names of their published books or magazines, among other things.
Hung Shu-ming (洪淑敏), the head of the trademark division at the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), did not think it improper that the bureau had granted Neuron Innovations the trademark.
"The application for taike registration was approved because Neuron Innovations has a leading position in hosting taike Rock concerts in recent years," Hung said.
Lin responded by saying that "first come, first served" was not a good reason for Neuron Innovations to get the trademark, as LTK (濁水溪公社), a local band which released an album titled Revenge of the Taike ten years ago, would have owned the trademark.
Lee Ming-tsung (
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS