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SIMULTANEOUS USE OF MULTIPLE REGISTERED FAMOUS MARKS NOT CONCLUSIVELY INFRINGING
The Trademark Act expressly provides that the use of a trademark identical or similar to a reg-istered trademark on the same or similar goods or services without the consent of the trademark rights holder is likely to constitute trademark infringement. But the courts have reached differing conclusions on the issue of whether the simultaneous use of multiple trademarks owned by different trademark owners definitely constitutes trademark infringement.
In a 2006 criminal judgment in a case involving the simultaneous use on work overalls of multi-ple famous-brand trademarks, including Mich-elin, West, Mercedes-Benz, Boss, Hugo Boss, and Bridgestone, the Hsinchu District Court held that such use did not constitute trademark in-fringement. The court stated that the accused's simultaneous use of different trademarks was merely for the purposes of decoration of the clothing; the marks were not used to indicate the source of goods, and their use would not cause confusion or misidentification among consumers. The prosecutor filed an appeal against this deci-sion, but the Taiwan High Court upheld the judgment of the Hsinchu District Court and dismissed the appeal.
Although the views expressed by the Hsinchu District Court and the Taiwan High Court relate only to a single individual case, they highlight a possible risk for trademark protection in the fu-ture. Not only for trademark infringement, a similar situation could also arise with regard to trademark registration applications. If registra-tion were to be sought for a trademark that was a combination of different famous marks, and if it were to be determined that there was no risk of this leading to confusion and misidentification among consumers, or diminishing the distinct-iveness or harming the commercial reputation of a trademark already registered or used, and if registration were to be granted, this would impact the owners of the previously registered or previously used trademarks.