The Intellectual Property Court yesterday ordered AMC Language School to pay TutorABC NT$3 million (US$97,072) in damages for trademark infringement in the second round of a lawsuit between the English-language schools.
In the first ruling earlier this year, the court also ruled in favor of TutorABC and ordered AMC and other firms to pay damages totaling NT$15 million and publish a half-page apology in the nation’s major newspapers.
AMC founder Peter Hsu (胥宏達) appealed that ruling, saying that “tutor” and “ABC” are generic terms in common use, citing other nations, such as China, that do not allow the word “tutor” to be trademarked.
TutorABC in 2012 sued more than 10 English-language schools and online teaching services claiming trademark infringement on the commercial use of “tutor” and “ABC.”
The company said it had trademarked the name “TutorABC” in 2007 with the Intellectual Property Office.
“TutorABC” has become a “well-known trademark,” it said, calling the use of similar terms such as “tutor” and “ABC” by other companies commercial theft, resulting in customer confusion and financial damages in contravention of the Trademark Act (商標法) and Fair Trade Act (公平交易法).
Among those named in the lawsuit were AMC with its Tutor4U trademark and www.tutor4u.com.tw Web site; Wells English with its TutorWell name and www.tutorwell.com.tw site; and Dr MVP with its TutorMVP service.
Also named were Jeda Language Institute with its eTutor service, Edison Technology with its HiTutor brand and other companies that use “tutor” or “ABC” for English-language education services.
Hsu said that he in 2006 had trademarked “Tutor Bank” before TutorABC’s registration in 2007, and therefore it was TutorABC that infringed on AMC’s trademark.
Hsu disagreed with both rulings on the grounds that common words cannot be trademarked, citing as an example the fact that the phrase “convenience store” is used commercially by all the leading convenience store chains in Taiwan.
Last month, Hsu and 15 other companies said that TutorABC’s actions “disrupt fair trade” and attempt to monopolize the online English-teaching market, and urged the Fair Trade Commission to intervene.
Hsu also said that Alibaba Group is a main shareholder of TutorABC, and that the Ministry of Economic Affairs has determined that it is a Chinese-funded company — a claim that TutorABC rejects.
Commission Chairwoman Huang Mei-ying (黃美瑛) at that time said that she believed the case to be contentious, as she considers “tutor” to be a common word.
Yesterday’s ruling can still be appealed.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the