Selling into Taiwan from a global website: the Target 'Bullseye Design' non-use case

1. The short answer

A Taiwan trademark can be cancelled if it has not been used for three years without a justifiable reason (Trademark Act, Art. 63(1)(ii)). Sales to Taiwan customers through a global website can count as use. The owner, however, has to prove that the mark was used for marketing in Taiwan, and as this case shows, the other side can challenge online records.

The “Bullseye Design” case is a good illustration. The registrant, the U.S. company that runs the Target shopping website, defended its Class 35 registration for a double-ring device mark with evidence of online sales: order and shipping confirmation emails, archived web pages and lists of Taiwan customer accounts. The Intellectual Property and Commercial Court, at first instance, ordered TIPO to cancel the registration for the services in dispute. On January 16, 2025, the Supreme Administrative Court set that judgment aside and remanded the case (112 Shang No. 373). To be clear, it did not hold that the evidence proved use. Its point was that the lower court had not examined the evidence as a whole, had not used its power to investigate, and had not explained why it rejected the owner’s answers to the customs and courier replies.

No judgment on the merits after remand has been published. When we checked the Judicial Yuan database on October 19, 2026, its case history listed the remand case (114 Xing-Shang-Geng-Yi No. 1) with the date March 12, 2026 and the note “withdrawn”, under the database’s mark for a case that is pending or has no published judgment. No decision text could be opened, and the entry does not say who withdrew what. We have not confirmed how the proceedings ended or the current status of the registration. What the 2025 judgment gives us, then, is a rule on how online evidence must be examined, not a measure of how much of it is enough.

2. The rules on non-use

• Ground. TIPO shall cancel a registration, ex officio or on request, where the mark has not been used, or its use has been suspended, for three consecutive years without a justifiable reason; use by a licensee counts (Art. 63(1)(ii)). A mark in use when the request is filed is not cancelled, unless the owner began using it within three months before the request, knowing a request was coming (Art. 63(3)). Cancellation can be limited to some of the goods or services (Art. 63(4)).
• What “use” means. Use of the mark for the purpose of marketing, on goods or their packaging, in dealing in marked goods, on service-related items, or in business documents or advertising, such that the relevant consumers recognize it as a trademark; use through electronic media or the internet counts too (Art. 5).
• Who must prove it. Once TIPO’s notice to answer is served, the owner must prove use; if it does not answer in time, TIPO may cancel directly (Art. 65(2)). The evidence must be sufficient to prove genuine use and consistent with ordinary commercial practice (Art. 67(3), applying Art. 57(3)).

TIPO’s Notes on the Use of Registered Trademarks address websites. A page under a “.tw” domain is, in principle, treated as aimed at the Taiwan market. For other domains, the owner must further show that the content targets consumers in Taiwan, for example by offering delivery to Taiwan or a Traditional Chinese option. The Notes list further factors, which they say are not exhaustive: whether consumers actually visited or bought through the site, after-sale or other business activity in Taiwan, a Taiwan address or other contact for ordering, whether the goods or services can lawfully be delivered in Taiwan, and whether prices are shown in New Taiwan dollars.

3. The case and its route

The registration was applied for on April 22, 2014 for Class 35 services, including convenience store, superstore, supermarket, shopping mall and department store services and online shopping. On March 9, 2020, a German furniture company asked TIPO to cancel it for non-use, so the period under review was the three years before that date.

Stage	Decision	Date	Result
TIPO	Cancellation decision	August 30, 2021	Cancelled for the retail of specific goods and the business services; not cancelled for the store and online shopping services
Administrative appeal	Appeal decision	November 23, 2021	The applicant’s appeal dismissed
Intellectual Property and Commercial Court (first instance)	111 Xing-Shang-Su No. 2	April 12, 2023	Appeal decision and TIPO’s decision set aside for the store and online shopping services; TIPO ordered to cancel for those services
Supreme Administrative Court (appeal)	112 Shang No. 373	January 16, 2025	Set aside and remanded
Intellectual Property and Commercial Court (first instance, on remand)	114 Xing-Shang-Geng-Yi No. 1	March 12, 2026	Listed as “withdrawn”; no published decision

4. Why the first-instance court cancelled

1. The emails were not proven genuine. The order confirmations, receipts and U.S. customs documents were printouts the owner had made and redacted itself, showing no source or only part of a web address. Once the applicant disputed them, the owner had to prove they were genuine. The court asked for unredacted versions and a notarized walk-through of placing an order and receiving the confirmation emails; the notarized walk-through the owner filed did not show a Taiwan consumer completing an order in Taiwan, and the site was in English with U.S.-dollar prices.
2. The rest did not show use in Taiwan. Most other documents did not show the mark, and one web page that did was dated after the cancellation request. The Customs Administration found no import declarations for the owner’s goods shipped to Taiwan by its logistics partner in the period, and a courier, asked by the court at the owner’s request, replied that the tracking number on the order did not appear to be one it indexed its records by and that an order dated May 10, 2017 was too old for it to provide records.
3. A global website is not, by itself, use in Taiwan. In the court’s view, marketing purpose requires a real possibility of trade in the Taiwan market, which a worldwide website does not establish on its own.

5. What the Supreme Administrative Court ordered

The standard. Whether use is genuine is a question of fact, judged by the period of trade, the kind of goods, the sales volume and whether the way of trading fits ordinary practice, and the owner bears the burden of proof. The evidence should show the mark, the date and the user, or be capable of being linked with other evidence to show use. The court must assess related evidence together and may not split it up and accept or reject each piece in isolation. An administrative court must investigate the facts and the evidence of its own motion; a judgment that falls short of that duty is contrary to law.

The errors.

1. The evidence was not read together. The order confirmations bore the mark and Traditional Chinese text, and showed order numbers, prices, duties and a delivery address in Taiwan. Archived terms-and-conditions pages from May 5, September 22 and December 13, 2017 said consumers worldwide could order, with international shipping through a logistics partner. Notarized account and purchase lists showed Taiwan consumers holding accounts and multiple purchases between April 19, 2018 and February 29, 2020. Read together, these seemed to show that Taiwan consumers could order and receive goods, so whether the owner’s claim was wholly without merit needed further examination.
2. The court did not investigate. If it had doubts, the lower court could have asked the Taiwan consumers named on the orders, on its own initiative, instead of rejecting the emails as self-printed and unnotarized.
3. The owner’s answers went unaddressed. The owner argued that the customs search, which treated the logistics partner as exporter and the owner as importer, did not match how its orders were shipped, and that the courier had not kept its 2017 records. These went to whether the evidence was genuine, and the lower court gave no reason for rejecting them.

The Supreme Administrative Court did not discuss the English-language site or the U.S.-dollar prices, and it did not say that a global website is enough. In our reading, the judgment governs how a court must handle online evidence; it is not a finding that this evidence proved use.

6. What to keep if you sell into Taiwan online

The steps below are our suggestions, drawn from the statute, TIPO’s Notes and the two judgments; whether the evidence is enough in a given case is for TIPO and the court to decide.

1. Match the registration to your Taiwan sales. Here, TIPO cancelled the retail of specific goods and the business services at the first stage, and only the store and online shopping services reached the courts. List each designated item and the Taiwan sales behind it.
2. Keep Taiwan-facing records as you go. TIPO’s Notes list screenshots, online transaction records, emails with customers, online advertising, online media reports, electronic invoices and contracts with platform operators as evidence an owner can file; each should show the mark, the goods or services, the date and the user, or be linked to other evidence that does. Order confirmations with the mark, Traditional Chinese text and a Taiwan delivery address are the documents the Supreme Administrative Court told the lower court to read together with the rest.
3. Make the chain linkable. One order number should lead from the confirmation to the shipping record to delivery. Keep your own logistics records for longer than the three-year non-use period; here, the courier said an order from 2017 was too old for it to provide records.
4. Fix dates on web pages. TIPO’s Notes list change-history timestamps, search-engine index dates, computer-generated posting times and internet archive services as dates generally regarded as credible; where a date or the content is still in doubt, other evidence is needed.
5. Plan how to authenticate. Redacted printouts failed at first instance once they were disputed. Keep unredacted originals and decide in advance how you would prove them genuine.
6. Treat the three-year rule as a business question. If Taiwan is a market you want to keep, a Traditional Chinese order page, New Taiwan dollar prices or a Taiwan delivery option are factors TIPO lists. Weigh that investment against the cost of defending a registration through TIPO, an administrative appeal and two court levels, which kept this case open from 2020 into 2026.

Whether your own records would hold up depends on the facts. If you sell into Taiwan only online, write to us with the registration number, the designated goods or services, how Taiwan customers order and receive goods, a sample order confirmation and shipping record, and any TIPO notice to answer with its deadline. Our trademark practice page covers maintenance and disputes in Taiwan.

7. Related pages

Trademark time limits, including opposition and renewal, are on our Taiwan patent and trademark deadlines page. A registrant with no domicile or business establishment in Taiwan must act through an agent (Trademark Act, Art. 6(1)); see our page on the power of attorney.