Only a few weeks ago, U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater wrote high-ranking officials of the Republic of China, warning them of the damage book piracy does to the image of the country.
A few days later, American business leaders in Taiwan met in Taipei, and at a press conference, Carter Booth, president of the American Chamber of Commerce, said: "The practice of commercial counterfeiting threatens Taiwan's reputation as a good place for trade and investment."
These warnings have jolted the public as well as the government into action. Two days after the press conference, Premier Y.S. Sun underlined the government's get-tough policy and announced the formation of a special task force-comprising the Ministries of Economic Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Justice, and Interior, and the Government Information Office-to study the dimensions of the problem.
On September 9, the Executive Yuan (Cabinet) directed the relevant agencies to ban the export of goods produced by manufacturers who have been found guilty of counterfeiting, infringing upon patent rights, or falsifying certificates of origin.
The Executive Yuan proposed revision of the Trademark and Patent Law to increase maximum prison terms to five years, with no recourse to the payment of fines as an alternate to the jail terms.
According to the current Law of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, a commercial counterfeiter may be sentenced to two years of imprisonment; but, if the sentence is below six months, the prison term may be converted to fines at the rate of nine silver dollars a day. Because the country no longer uses silver dollars, one silver dollar is convertible to nine NT dollars. So the counterfeiter is really just required to pay NT$4,860, or US$121.50, in lieu of six months of imprisonment. A law breaker can afford to pay the money and remain scot free.
The Executive Yuan has also ordered the Ministry of Economic Affairs to study the feasibility of the ROC joining international trademark conventions or patent organizations, and of offering protection to foreign trademarks that are not registered here. The current law extends protection only to trademarks that are legally registered with the ROC authorities.
Following these Executive Yuan decisions, V.C. Siew, director general of the Board of Foreign Trade, expressed deep public regret and great concern over the complaints from foreign companies:
"Because of their limited scale of production, some manufacturers in Taiwan are not yet capable of selling their goods on foreign markets under their own brand names. As a result, they often put on the trademarks or labels furnished by the foreign importers who have placed orders with them."
Siew added: "More often than not, local manufacturers are not aware that the use of such trademarks may be illegal. Should there be any case of counterfeiting, it would be unfair to hold the manufacturers alone accountable for the act. The foreign importers should also be responsible. To prevent future counterfeiting, certain measures for strict control should be applied to both local manufacturers and foreign importers."
Though the law is yet to be amended, the Board of Foreign Trade has already taken several executive actions. Among them, it has invited representatives of concerned government agencies and business and industrial firms to a meeting to discuss all ways and means to stop the counterfeiting.
The government's Bureau of Commodity Inspection and Quarantine and the Customs Service have been requested to strengthen inspection of exports before they are cleared for shipment, to carefully inspect certificates of origin, and to determine whether there are imitations of foreign trademarks.
Concerned government agencies are also studying the feasibility of investigating the trademark legitimacy of export products before export licenses are grant ed, in order to specifically determine, without causing export disruption, whether trademarks furnished by foreign buyers are legally acquired.
The media here have also paid close attention to the complaints. The newspapers frequently publish scholarly articles on the subject. One television station devoted a one-hour broadcast to a hard hitting discussion among scholars, government officials, and business leaders.
Vice Economic Minister Wang Chao-ming stated on the TV broadcast that a trademark and patent court should be established here to handle complaints. He also called for police help in investigations.
The Vice Minister disclosed that since the establishment of the task force to crack down on commercial counterfeiting and infringement of copyright, it has referred 103 cases to the courts. So far, 28 accused counterfeiters in these cases have been sentenced to prison terms, seven have been fined, and 22 have been acquitted. Others are still under investigation.
The Taichung District Court on September 4 sentenced a publisher to four months imprisonment for pirating American books. Tseng Wen-kui, proprietor of Tseng's Publishing Company in Taichung, was convicted of pirating six books published by the Reader's Digest Co. and another American publishing concern. Ninety-nine copies of the pirated books were seized by the police.
These developments have also disturbed President Chiang Ching-kuo, who met with business leaders recently and urged them to take breakthrough measures to establish an untarnished business reputation and image for the nation.
The President, pointing out that Taiwan's entire economy is export-oriented, stressed that the nation's export growth must be sustained. He said it was not easy for Taiwan to carve out its share of the international market during past years. To hold and expand the hard earned markets calls for improvements in export quality as well as orders; only by so doing, the President warned, can "our competitive capability be maintained." He advised business leaders to make the establishment of a new image their priority task.