Few people can resist the inviting aroma of freshly baked egg cakes (雞蛋糕), and the wide variety of shapes they come in make them especially appealing to kids. However, authorized distributors of popular cartoon and comic book characters Doraemon and SpongeBob SquarePants warned that vendors using the characters as a marketing tool without their permission is illegal.
An egg-cake peddler in Taipei surnamed Chang (張) said he bought the cake molds from a distributor and was surprised to learn that he has violated the law.
“If I had known earlier, I would have bought traditional egg-shaped molds instead,” Chang said.
Photo: Wu Sheng-ju, Taipei Times
Another Taipei-based vendor surnamed Lai (賴) said she knew selling egg-cakes bearing the image of cartoon characters would be a problem, which is why she chose to use a set of elephant and bird-shaped molds designed and patented by her father.
Taiwan Shogakukan, the Taiwanese branch of Shogakukan, publisher of the beloved Japanese anime Doraemon, said some egg-cake vendors have infringed on the company’s rights as they have not been granted permission to use the company’s designs.
Meanwhile, Lienchih Co, the authorized Taiwanese distributor of SpongeBob SquarePants products, said it would consult the franchise’s owner on whether it should file charges against such vendors.
According to Louis International Law Firm attorney Leo Ko (柯林宏), Doraemon and SpongeBob SquarePants are registered trademarks in Taiwan and their designs cannot be used without permission.
Using these designs to manufacture pancake molds is an act of infringement and both the manufacturers and owners could face legal liability should copyright and trademark owners decide to press charges against them, he said.
Taiwan, as a member of the WTO, is governed by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which stipulates that the owner of a trademark or copyright may claim their rights overseas, meaning they may demand compensation from violators and protect their intellectual property from unauthorized use under Article 68 of the Trademark Act (商標法) and Article 84 of the Copyright Act (著作權法).
Furthermore, Article 95 of the Trademark Act and Article 91 of the Copyright Act state that violators shall face a prison term of no more than three years or a fine of no more than NT$750,000 (US$25,000).
However, a lawyer who declined to be named said that given the low profits that egg-cake sellers make, it is unlikely that copyright owners would bother to file lawsuits against them.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS