Polylight Design Co on Monday said it has appealed against allegations of appropriation of intellectual property rights by restaurant chain Din Tai Fung, who said Polylight used “mascots” designed for the restaurant.
Polylight manger Hsu Wen-hua (徐文華) said the company has been working with Din Tai Fung since 2008, designing three restaurant-specific mascots — cartoon figures of Paozai (包仔), Lungzai (籠仔) and a frog — that were for sale at the restaurant chain’s stores.
Polylight agreed to surrender ownership rights of the 3D trademark of the mascots to the restaurant chain in 2009, but Polylight retained the rights for the 2D trademark, Hsu said.
Photo: Wang Ting-fu, Taipei Times
Hsu said that not only had Din Tai Fung circumvented the company to register the 2D trademarked mascots in its own name, it had also, without warning, terminated its contract with Polylight.
The termination of the contract has caused Polylight great losses, as there were more than 10,000 items stored in its warehouse specifically made as part of the contract, Hsu said.
Hsu said Din Tai Fung planned the takeover of its intellectual property rights by directly hiring the designer of the Lungzai and Paozai characters, adding that the restaurant chain was also “stealing” the intellectual rights of the frog figure that was featured in other brochures and leaflets promoting restaurant products.
Polylight is suing Din Tai Fung and its manager, Yang Chi-hua (楊紀華), for violations of the Copyright Act (著作權法).
The Taipei District Court recently ruled in favor of Din Tai Fung, saying that Polylight had knowledge of the restaurant’s registration for the 2D trademark; that Polylight had a history of being unable to provide these products for the restaurant and that Polylight knew of the restaurant’s manufacture and use of its own version of the Paozai and Lungzai products, but had not notified the restaurant chain that such an act was breach of their contract.
Hsu on Monday said that the ruling was a result of “extensive interpretation” by the court and appealed the ruling, which will see trial under a collegiate bench at the Intellectual Property Court. A date for the trial has not been set.
Hsu said the restaurant’s claims that its products were different from that of Polylight, and that its claims that Polylight has been unable to provide the products, does not address the issue that the restaurant is violating Polylight’s intellectual property rights.
Hsu added that Din Tai Fung should not have altered the trademarks in any way, despite having obtained the rights to the 3D trademarks.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods