In a meeting with a visiting group of Chinese officials, the Taiwan office took the opportunity to express Taiwan's wish that the Chinese government would establish consultation service windows in major cities around China to assist Taiwanese companies whose intellectual properties have been pirated, but faced difficulties making compensation claims, said IPO Director-General Wang Mei-hua.

Wang said her office has been approached by a large number of Taiwanese companies who have complained that they have suffered from IPR infringement in China of their products, including printed or audio-visual publications and motion pictures, but do not have a clue about where to make a claim.

"Quite unlike in Taiwan, where victims of IPR piracy go to the court directly for their complaints, similar cases were handled in administrative offices in China," Wang noted.

For Taiwanese music producers, she said, they would have to approach a semi-official Chinese agency based in Hong Kong first for an approval certificate before their publications or products could actually enter the mainland Chinese market.

They also complained that the fees that they have collected in China for karaoke music download authorization were disproportionate compared to that collected in Taiwan, Wang said.

Before the closed-door meeting, the officials from the two sides attended a forum on cross-strait IPR and related affairs organized by the General Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of China.

The Chinese official leading the delegation that attended the meeting was Zhao Xiuling, a department head in charge of law enforcement against IPR violations and infringement at China's National Copyright Administration.