sannkuen (燦坤) Company, one of the major consumer electronics distributors in Taiwan, initiated a criminal action against Taiwan Google company for trademark infringement since they found the search result of “燦坤3c”(Tsannkuen 3c) or “燦坤3c大賣場”(Tsannjuen 3c store) contains links of irrelevant Chinese companies. The domain names of these Chinese companies (www.tk3ctw.com and www.tkshop3d.com) are confusingly similar to that of the Tsannkuen Company (www.tk3c.com.tw). The two Chinese companies purchased the keyword advertisement (advertise websites by making it on the top of a search result) from Google in 2011. Therefore Tsannkuen Company alleged that the search result would confuse and mislead general customers into believing that Tsannkuen is related to these Chinese companies.

However, after reviewing the articles of incorporation of Taiwan Google and the service terms of Google Inc. (a U.S. company), the prosecutor found the search engine is operated and maintained by Google Inc., and Taiwan Google, as a subsidiary of Google Inc. has no right to request Google Inc. to remove the aforementioned search results. Furthermore, since Taiwan Google and Google Inc. are different legal entities, Google Taiwan would not be held responsible for the acts of Google Inc. Therefore the prosecutor decided to dismiss Tsannkuen’s request and not to prosecute the legal representative of Taiwan Google.