By Wang Chieh and Dennis Xie / Staff reporter, with staff writerThe Tainan District Court on Wednesday last week sentenced a volunteer soldier who sold unlicensed cartoon stickers on an online platform to 50 days in prison for contravening the Trademark Act (商標法), saying that her selling counterfeit and pirated goods could tarnish Taiwan’s international reputation regarding intellectual property rights. The 23-year-old soldier, surnamed Liu (劉) and who lives in Tainan, opened an online shop on e-commerce platform Shopee two years ago and began selling stickers and pins featuring famous Japanese cartoon characters that she purchased on Chinese online shopping service Taobao, with each item priced between NT$40 and NT$50, the court said. Police searched Liu’s home in February last year, finding 600 pirated products, it added. Liu infringed on the rights of the trademark owners, and her trade in counterfeit and pirated goods posed a risk of influencing other nations’ perception of Taiwan regarding intellectual property rights, the court said. In addition, Liu has not reached settlements with the trademark owners, it said.
