Taiwan and Japan Strengthen Patent Examination Cooperation by Signing the MoUs on Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) and on Design Patent Priority Document Exchange (PDX) - 2019.10.30

Today (October 30th), the Taiwan-Japan Relations Association and Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association signed the MoUs on Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) and on Design Patent Priority Document Exchange (PDX). Through the two cooperative programs, TIPO and the JPO will facilitate more efficient and convenient services for applicants.

In May 2012, TIPO and the JPO launched the PPH pilot program, which was then modified to PPH MOTTAINAI in 2014 and was extended for three years in 2017. As of the end of September 2019, TIPO had received 3,426 requests for expedited examination, outnumbering other five ongoing PPH programs TIPO is currently partnering with. In addition, the pilot program remarkably sped up examination process, with first OA pendency averaging at 1.21 months and disposal at 3.77 months, respectively. In view of its excellent performance, TIPO and the JPO agreed that following the expiry of the pilot program, a permanent PPH program will replace it, starting on May 1, 2020. This permanent program is aimed at continuing to provide applicants with stable and convenient PPH services.

Taiwan and Japan Strengthen Patent Examination Cooperation by Signing the MoUs on Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) and on Design Patent Priority Document Exchange (PDX)

Amended Patent Act will enter into force on November 1, 2019 - 2019.10.28

The amendments to the Patent Act promulgated on May 1, 2019 will come into force on November 1, 2019. The main points of the amended act include: the term of protection of a design patent will extend to 15 years from 12 years; an applicant may file a request for division of patent application within three months upon receiving the approval decision of an examination or reexamination, and such a rule also applies to utility model patent applications; a request of invalidation should provide invalidation reasons or evidence within three months and no reviews will be made beyond this time period (also, there are time limits for patentees to file post-grant amendment requests during invalidation proceedings); there is a new time period allowed for utility model patentees to file post-grant amendment requests, and post-grant amendments to utility model patent will have to go through substantive examination rather than formality examination.

Transitional provisions for the implementations of the amendments are as follows – please be aware of the differences:

1. Extension of the period of design patent protection

• The term of protection of a design patent will still be 12 years if a design expires on the date of implementation of the amendments.

• The term of protection of a design patent will automatically extend to 15 years if its right is valid on the date of implementation of the amendments.

Amended Patent Act will enter into force on November 1, 2019

New measure for acknowledging claim of priority of design patents comes into force - 2019.08.26

On claiming priority of design patents, in the future, only when it is discovered that the date of a previous application or the date of publication of relevant data falls between the claimed priority date and the filing date of a later application, may the competent authority decide whether to recognize the priority claim or not, based on verification documents. If it is not discovered during the search, in principle, the priority claim will be published in the Patent Gazette as requested by the applicant.

If the applicant makes several priority claims at once, based on the aforementioned principle, the claims will still all be published in the Patent Gazette. However, this does not mean the design patent in question may (always) acquire multiple priority claims or part of such claims. It depends on whether the content of the priority claims are against the rules relating to “identical designs.” Substantial determination will be in place if prior art is found to be set between the filing date of application and the priority date.

The measure was implemented on the date of publication (August 1, 2019) of Vol. 46, Issue. 22 of the Patent Gazette.

New measure for acknowledging claim of priority of design patents comes into force

TIPO’s Q3 2018 IPR Statistics Report - 2018.11.13

In Q3 2018, TIPO received a total of 18,328 applications for invention, utility model, and design patents, a 2% drop from the same period of last year. Of these, invention patent applications have been growing for seven consecutive quarters. Applications for trademark registrations (21,060), however, decreased by 5%.

Patent
Invention patent applications (11,746 cases) increased by 1%, a growth for seven consecutive quarters (Table 2). Design patents (2,200 cases) grew by 0.1%. Utility model patents stood at 4,382 cases, an 11% drop from the same period of last year (Table 1).

Of residents’ applications, 1,195 cases were filed for design patent, registering a 6% year-on-year increase. Invention patent applications (4,440 cases) dropped by 6% though the cumulative number of applications at the end of Q3 2018 grew slightly. Utility model applications (4,061 cases) fell by 11%. Of non-residents’ applications, invention patent applications (7,306 cases) grew by 6% while applications for utility model (321 cases) and design (1,005 cases) decreased by 9% and 6% respectively (Table 1).

As for invention patent applications by domestic companies, the TSMC once again led by 303 cases. HTC (43 cases) and QUANTA (36 cases) both saw huge growth of 87% and 125% respectively. However, applications by HON HAI (51 cases) saw a drop of 55% (Figure 2).

By nationality of foreign origins, Japan topped the list with 3,254 invention patent applicants, followed by the US (1,559 cases)(Figure 1). Among the largest filing companies, QUALCOMM came on top with 234 cases, followed by ALIBABA GROUP SERVICES (132 cases) and TOSHIBA MEMORY (115 cases). QUALCOMM outperformed others by an increase of 73% in this period (Figure 2).

Trademark
The number of new applications for trademark registration (21,060 cases) in Q3 2018 decreased by 5% from the same period of last year. However, the cumulative number of applications at the end of Q3 2018 increased by 1% (Table 1).

Applications filed by residents (14,795 cases) were down by 9% while applications by non-residents (6,265 cases) were up by 6% (Table 1).

Among the largest filing countries (regions), mainland China stayed on top with 1,522 cases, followed by Japan (1,133 cases), US (1,085 cases), Hong Kong (442 cases) and R. Korea (385 cases). With the exception of R. Korea fell, the other top-filing countries (regions) registered growth (Figure 1).

Download: TIPO’s Q3 2018 IPR Statistics Report.pdf