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The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) and our firm will be closed for the following important and longer national holidays in January and February 2013 as follows:

[ December 2012 ] >Back
Important
    I. The national holidays in Taiwan
  The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) and our firm will be closed for the following important and longer national holidays in January and February 2013 as follows:
  1. The Founding Anniversary: from December 29, 2012 (Saturday) to January 1, 2013 (Tuesday).
  2. The Chinese Lunar New Year holidays: from February 9 (Saturday) to February 17, 2013 (Sunday)
 
  We will resume working on the next days of the above-mentioned holidays. Kindly send us your orders of new patent or trademark applications or your instructions of any time-consuming work one week before the holidays to avoid the urgent work if at all possible. Thank you for your kind attention to this matter.
 
  . Year 2013 National Holidays in Taiwan, R.O.C.
 
Date Festival and Holiday Name
Jan. 01 Tue. Founding Anniversary
Feb. 9 ~ Feb. 17 Sat.~ Sun. Lunar New Year’s Day
Feb. 23 Sat. Adjusts to work
Feb. 28 Thur. Peace Memorial Day
Apr. 04~Apr. 05 Thur.~Fri Tomb-sweeping Festival & Children’s Day
June 12 Wed. Dragon Boat Festival
Sep. 14 Sat. Adjusts to work
Sep. 19~ Sep.20 Thur.~Fri. Mid-autumn Festival
Oct. 10 Thur. National Day
     
  Notices:
  1. Our offices will be closed every Saturday and Sunday.
  2. If you should have any instructions or require any instructions from us related to official due dates within the above holidays, please kindly contact us in advance as soon as possible.
  3. We would greatly appreciate if you would forward any new Schedule of Charges or Filing Forms to us as soon as they are issued or updated.
Patent
I. The important amendments on the Enforcement Rules of the Patent Act which will be effective on January 1, 2013
 
  The new Patent Act will be effective as of January 1, 2013 and the Enforcement Rules of the Patent Act will be also effective on the same day. We herewith list some important amendments on the Enforcement Rules of the Patent Act for your reference:
 
  1. The paragraphs of the specification, other than in the claims or abstract, may be numbered at the time the application is filed, and should be individually and consecutively numbered using Arabic numerals, so as to unambiguously identify each paragraph. The number should consist of at least four numerals enclosed in square brackets, including leading zeros (e.g., [0001]). The numbers and enclosing brackets should appear to the right of the left margin as the first item in each paragraph before the first word of the paragraph. (New Rule 17 III)
 
  2. If missing parts of the specification or missing drawings are filed later than the date of filing, the application shall be re dated to the date on which the missing parts of the specification or missing drawings were filed by the applicant in due course. The TIPO shall inform the applicant accordingly. However, the original filing date may be kept under the following conditions:
    (1)If the missing parts of the specification or missing drawings are filed within the period required by the TIPO, and the application claims priority of an earlier application, the date of filing shall, provided that the missing parts of the specification or the missing drawings are completely contained in the earlier application, remain the filing date.
    (2)Within 30 days of the official notification, the applicant may withdraw the missing parts of the specification or the missing drawings filed, in which case the re dating shall be deemed not to have been made. The TIPO shall inform the applicant accordingly. (New Rule 24)
 
  3. When an applicant submits a photocopy of the certified priority document within the statutory period, the TIPO will issue an official notice to request for supplementing the original certified priority document which is the same as the photocopied one in due course. Instead of submitting the original document, the applicant may indicate in which patent application the original document has been submitted to the TIPO. It is allowed to submit the priority document through the way of electronic exchange obtained from the foreign countries which have signed mutual agreements with the TIPO. (New Rule 26)
 
  4. When a divisional application is filed within thirty days from the date on which an approval decision for the original patent application has been served according to the Patent Act, Article 34.II(2), the parts to be divided from the original application should be the specification or drawings of the invention which do not fall in the scope of the approved claims. The original specification, claims and drawings granted by the TIPO are not allowed to be amended when filing a divisional application. (New Rule 29)
 
  5. The specification of a design shall contain the following items:
    (1)the title of the design;
    (2)the intended use of the design; and
    (3)the description of the design.
    However, if the title and drawings can clearly express the features of the design, the above item (2) or (3) is not necessarily stated in the specification of the design. (New Rule 50)
 
  6. According to the new Patent Act, Article 62.II, the license of a patent may be either an exclusive license or a non-exclusive license. In addition, the patentee may license part of the claims of a granted patent to a third party. In this regard, the kind of the license and the claims to be licensed should be stated clearly in the License Agreement. (New Rule 65)
 
  (Source: TIPO News announced on November 9, 2012)
  (http://www.tipo.gov.tw/ch/News_NewsContent.aspx?NewsID=6331)
 
II. The adjusted official fees for patent procedures will be effective on January 1, 2013
 
  We herewith list the adjustments of the official fees for patent procedures which will be effective on January 1, 2012 for your reference:
 
Items Current official fees Adjustments
Request for re-examination of an application Where the specification and drawings do not exceed 50 pages…NT$8,000;
for each additional 50 pages of specification and drawings over the first 50 pages…NT$500;
less than 50 pages shall be counted as 50 pages.		 Items of claims do not exceed 10 claims…NT$7,000;
each additional claim…NT$800
Applying for the technical report of a utility model patent NT$5,000 Items of claims do not exceed 10 claims…NT$5,000;
each additional claim…NT$600
Request for invalidation Invention…NT$10,000
Utility Model…NT$9,000
Design…NT$8,000
  1. For Invention and Utility Model patent… NT$5000;
    each claim…NT$800.
  2. For specific grounds of the invalidation, such as the applicant is not entitled to file the patent application or where the home country of the patentee does not accept the patent applications filed by nationals of the ROC:
    Invention…NT$10,000
    Utility Model…NT$9,000
  3. Design…NT$8,000
Applying for correction of specification or drawings for a Utility Model patent NT$2,000
  1. Formality examination only… NT$1,000
  2. Substantive examination in the invalidation procedure…NT$2,000
Applying for restoration of priority claim Nil NT$2,000
Amendment of mistranslation of the specification Nil NT$2,000
Request for changes Request for the change(s) other than specification or drawings…NT$300;
where two or more changes are made for an application at the same time…NT$300		 (The items of changes are specified clearly as follows:)
Request for the changes of name or title of the applicant, stamp or signature, the inventor of an invention or the creator of a utility model patent or a design, name of the inventor or creator, the attorney, the other amendments concerning the patent license, pledge or trust of a patent right … NT$300, each patent
converting a design patent application into a partial design or converting an associated design patent application into derivative design patent application Nil NT$3,000 for each design
The conditions of refund of official fees for substantive examination or re-examination are added. After requesting for the substantive examination, if the application is withdrawn or converted by the applicant before receiving the 1st official notice, the official fee for the request of substantive examination or re-examination can be refunded. However, it will not be applicable for the applications which have proceeded with Collective Interviews  
 
  (Source: TIPO Newsletter issued on December 5, 2012)
  (http://www.tipo.gov.tw/Resource/EPaper/34cd1333-77e1-48cc-9552-c5ba7b0ca010.html )
 
Trademark
I. The principles for dealing with the Article 32 III of the current Trademark Act
 
  According to Article 32 III of the current Trademark Act which was entered into force on July 01, 2012, where an applicant has unintentionally failed to pay the fee within the period prescribed in the preceding paragraph, the applicant may pay double within six months from the day following the date on which the prescribed period expires, in which case the Registrar Office will publish the registration. However, this shall not be applied if an application for trademark registration filed or rights of a trademark obtained by a third party during such period would be affected.
 
  In order to let people understand more about the principles of this Article, the TIPO interpreted as follows:
 
  1. The applicant should state reasons and pay the registration fee in double within six months from the official due date when applying for the restoration of the trademark right.
  2. The request of restoration of the trademark right will not be accepted if the request is made after six months from the official due date. If no reason is stated in the request or no sufficient official fee is paid with the said request, the TIPO will issue an official notice for the applicant to make a correction within a prescribed time period. Failing to respond to the TIPO within the notified period will cause the rejection of the said request.
  3. According to different examination results, the handling ways will be as follows:
   
(1) The request for restoring the trademark right will be allowed if there is no situation mentioned in the proviso of the Article 32 III: “However, this shall not be applied if an application for trademark registration filed or rights of a trademark obtained by a third party during such period would be affected.”
(2) If the request will affect the interests of a third party as mentioned in the proviso of the Article 32 III, the TIPO will issue an official notice for the applicant to respond within one month.
  A. The request for restoration will be accepted if the response can be sustained.
  B. The request for restoration will be rejected if the response is not accepted or the applicant fails to respond to the official notice within the notified period. If so, the applicant may request for refunding the paid official fee. It is allowed for the applicant to file an Administrative Remedy against the official decision.
  4. It takes about three months from filing the request for restoration of trademark right to receiving the official notice.
  5. If an applicant pays one time of official registration fee after the expiry of the official due date but within six months, the TIPO will regard that the applicant intends to restore the trademark right. The date of applying for the request for restoration of trademark right will be the date of firstly paying the official registration fee. The examiner will issue an official notice to request the applicant to supplement the reasons of restoration and make up the deficiency of double official fee in due course.
 
  (Source: TIPO News announced on October 4, 2012)
  (http://www.tipo.gov.tw/ch/News_NewsContent.aspx?NewsID=6250)