The government-funded Institute for Information Industry yesterday said that it has filed a criminal lawsuit against Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Legislator Kao Hung-an (高虹安) for allegedly improperly using copyrighted institute material in her doctoral dissertation.
Kao is the TPP’s Hsinchu mayoral candidate in the Nov. 26 local elections.
The institute said that it filed the lawsuit on Tuesday after it became clear that the two sides were not likely to reach a settlement out of court.
Photo: CNA
It also vowed to file a civil suit against Kao to protect its rights and interests.
The institute has accused Kao of using passages from copyrighted research reports that she coauthored when working at the institute in her doctoral dissertation at the University of Cincinnati without crediting the institute.
The institute said its lawyer on Oct. 13 sent Kao a letter demanding that she explain her actions and offer solutions.
The letter was also sent to John Walter Weidner, dean of the university’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where Kao studied for her doctorate, as well as to the OhioLink library network and the ProQuest publishing company.
The institute received Kao’s response on Thursday last week, in which she reiterated that her usage of the passages constituted “fair use.”
Institute president C.H. Cho (卓政宏) on Oct. 5 said that analyses by two different software programs showed that Kao had duplicated 70 to 80 percent of the institute report in her dissertation, which he said exceeds the scope of “fair use.”
Allegations that Kao had plagiarized her dissertation were first reported by Chinese-language Mirror Media magazine on Sept. 20.
Kao denied the allegations, presenting an e-mail dated Aug. 22 by Jane Strasser, senior associate vice president for research at the University of Cincinnati’s Research Integrity Office, backing her argument.
“The allegations involve self-plagiarism, which is not considered research misconduct,” Strasser wrote, adding that there were “no copyright concerns” with Kao’s dissertation.
Members of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have accused Kao of plagiarism, copyright infringement and improper citation, but critics have dismissed their claims as politically motivated.
As of press time last night, the institute’s Google Business page had received more than 200 one-star reviews, with many Internet users accusing it of contravening the principle of administrative neutrality and behaving like a DPP affiliate.
The sentiment has been fueled in part by a reversal in the institute’s position.
When the allegations against Kao first emerged, the institute on Sept. 20 said that authorization for using research that it has funded was only needed if it was intended for “practical applications,” not for academic use.
Kao has also accused the institute of political interference after it separately accused her of illegally taking part-time jobs at Taipei-based technology company Servtech and for concealing her admission to the university’s doctoral program, at which time she was still an institute employee.
DENIAL
Kao yesterday at a news conference denied the accusations, calling them “blatant lies.”
She presented an e-mail from 2015, which showed her supervisor at the institute addressing her as “Servtech business division head,” suggesting that the institute had known about her job at Servtech, she said.
All of her work at the institute, including taking up the unpaid post at Servtech, was done according to the instructions of her supervisor or institute management, she said.
In 2012, the institute sent her to the US to undertake a joint research project with the University of Cincinnati, when she concurrently enrolled in the university’s doctoral program and informed the institute of doing so, she said.
In an e-mail copied to her direct supervisors at the time, then-institute vice president Gary Gong (龔仁文) asked her how she was adapting to her work and studies at the university, she said.
Kao said Cho should apologize to her for saying during a legislative hearing that the institute was unaware of her enrollment at the university, which is pure fabrication, she said.
“The extent to which the institute has distorted the facts suggests that it came under immense political pressure,” she said.
The DPP has aggressively gone after candidates in the local elections over plagiarism issues and other improper acts after its candidate for Taoyuan mayor, former Hsinchu mayor Lin Chih-chien (林智堅), faced similar accusations.
Lin had to eventually pull out of the race after National Taiwan University found that he had indeed committed plagiarism in his master’s thesis and described the offense as serious.
Latest polls show Kao leading a three-way race for Hsinchu mayor, despite the accusations.
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
TAKE BREAKS: A woman developed cystitis by refusing to get up to use the bathroom while playing mahjong for fear of disturbing her winning streak, a doctor said People should stand up and move around often while traveling or playing mahjong during the Lunar New Year holiday, as prolonged sitting can lead to cystitis or hemorrhoids, doctors said. Yuan’s General Hospital urologist Lee Tsung-hsi (李宗熹) said that he treated a 63-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙) who had been sitting motionless and holding off going to the bathroom, increasing her risk of bladder infection. Chao would drink beverages and not urinate for several hours while playing mahjong with friends and family, especially when she was on a winning streak, afraid that using the bathroom would ruin her luck, he said. She had
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry
RSS