In July, 1995, Taiwan promulgated its Integrated Circuit Chip Lay-out Design Law. The statute complies with TRIPs requirements, and grants a ten year term of manufacturing and business secrets shall be taken into account. Article 91 If an article made by the use of a manufacturing method patent was not known to exist anywhere in the world prior to the application of the manufacturing method patent, then identical articles manufactured by another person shall be presumed to have been manufactured by the use of the said patented method. The presumption referred to in the preceding paragraph may be overturned by presenting rebutting evidence. If evidence can be provided to prove that identical articles can be manufactured by methods other than the patented one, the evidence shall be deemed as rebutting. The legitimate rights and interest associated with the manufacturing and business secret disclosed by the rebutting evidence shall be fully protected. TRIPs, Article 36: Subject to the provisions of paragraph 1 of Article 37 below, Members shall consider unlawful the following acts if performed without the authorization of the right holder: importing, selling, or otherwise distributing for commercial purposes a protected layout design, an integrated circuit in which a protected layout design is incorporated, or an article incorporating such an integrated circuit only insofar as it continues to contain an unlawfully reproduced layout design. TRIPs Article 38: 1. In Members requiring registration as a condition of protection, the term of protection of layout designs shall not end before the expiration of a period of ten years counted from the date of filing an application for registration or from the first commercial exploitation wherever in the world it occurs. Protection from the date of application on original IC chip lay outs, or of the first commercial use, whichever first occurs. The statute prohibits unauthorized sales, importing, distribution of IC chips, chip layout designs, or an article incorporating such an IC chip. However, TRIPs also requires that members shall not hold someone liable for infringement if they did not know, or had no reasonable grounds to know that a chip or an article incorporating the chip, infringed on the layout ownerss rights. Such an innocent infringer is liable for a sum equivalent to a reasonable royalty. Taiwan law contains a slight variation on the royalty requirement for innocent infringers. Under Taiwan law, such liability only accrues after notice of the infringement. Whereas TRIPs establishes a type of strict liability to protect chip design owners, Taiwan imposes an intent requirement before damages even equal to a reasonable royalty accrue. - See more at: http://www.wangandwang.com/news-articles/articles/taiwan-effort/#sthash.geVMgI1a.dpuf