While Taiwan has done a sterling job in creating laws to protect intellectual property rights (IPR), they have yet to enforce the laws effectively enough to deal with the problem, experts said yesterday.
In terms of legislation, Taiwan is making great advances getting IP laws on the books, but there are still problems on the enforcement side, said Andy Sun (
"It comes down to the people: they have to know that stealing is stealing, regardless of what form it takes," Sun said. "They won't steal clothes from a department store, but they will burn a CD at home -- That has to change."
Organized by the non-profit Asia Foundation in Taiwan and the Graduate Institute of IP at National Chengchi University, yesterday's Competition Laws and High-tech Industries Conference brought together more than 200 lawyers, academics and politicians from Taiwan, the US and the EU to share their experiences on fair trade and IP protection in the high-tech industry.
The enforcement of IPR laws "is crucial to innovation as well as to economic development," Debra Valentine from a Washington-based IP law firm said.
Taiwan has looked to foreign governments to formulate its IPR legislation, taking some elements from EU, Japan and US law, Valentine said. Taiwan may be selecting the best elements from each, but is at risk of combining incompatible elements, resulting in"headaches for enforcement agencies, courts, and IP holders," Valentine said.
The government has taken pains to be seen doing the right thing.
"Taiwan is very much in compliance with international regulations, and in many aspects it has arguably taken that extra step," Sun said. "For example, Taiwan does not belong to the World Intellectual Property Organization, and is not required to comply with the Berne and Paris conventions [that require IP protection], but it does."
Although improvements have been made, more needs to be done.
"When I was at Siemens, we had many problems with patents in Taiwan," said Bernhard Thum, an attorney at European patent and trademark firm Wuesthoff & Wuesthoff, and former licensing counsel for Germany's Siemens AG. "Things are much better now. The main thing is for Asian countries to [enact more effective] IP laws, then they will be on the same level as the Europeans and there won't be so many problems."
Local IP experts agreed.
"The government is very aware that there is a problem, but a lot of people are against changes in the IP laws," said Jeffrey Harris, co-chair of the American Chamber of Commerce's Intellectual Property Committee and director of Orient Commercial Enquiries, a consulting firm specialized in IPR.
"Taiwan is still trying to manage foreigners rather than manage the problem," John Eastwood, a lawyer at Winkler Partners (
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