During the recent years, Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) implemented various measures to simplify the filing procedures for patent and trademark applications, especially to shorten the pendency of examination time for patent applications via Accelerated Examination Program (AEP) and Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program. According to 2016 annual report and statistics from TIPO, we summarize the average prosecution time for patent and trademark applications as follows.
Average Prosecution Time for normal Patent and Trademark Applications
| Average time for first office action issued | Average time for disposal made | |
|---|---|---|
| Invention Patent Application | 12.0 months | 19.8 months |
| Utility Model Patent Application | - | 2.5 months |
| Design Patent Application | 5.3 months | 6.9 months |
| Trademark Application | 5.4 months | 8.6 months |
| Remark : Disposal includes the decision of allowance, rejection or others For utility model patent application, only formality examination conducted | ||
Average Prosecution Time for Patent Applications by Use of AEP
| Bases to apply for AEP | Average time for first office action issued | Average time for disposal made |
|---|---|---|
| Base 1 | 2.4 months | 5.7 months |
| Base 2 | 2.7 months | 7.9 months |
| Base 3 | 4.5 months | 9.4 months |
| Base 4 | 3.4 months | 8.2 months |
| Remark : Base 1 – for invention patent applications which their corresponding foreign patent applications were allowed after conducting substantive examination by their respective foreign patent office Base 2 – for invention patent applications which their corresponding foreign patent applications were pending before USPTO, JPO or EPO but official action and search report had been issued Base 3 – for invention patent applications which were required for commercial practice Base 4 – for invention patent applications which were related to green technologies | ||
Average Prosecution Time for Patent Applications by Use of PPH
| PPH Agreements | Average time for first office action issued | Average time for disposal made |
|---|---|---|
| TIPO-USPTO | 1.8 months | 4.7 months |
| TIPO-JPO | 1.9 months | 4.4 months |
| Remark： The current PPH agreements include TIPO-USPTO, TIPO-JPO, TIPO-SPTO, TIPO-KIPO and TIPO-PPO, but most PPH requests were filed based on TIPO-USPTO and TIPO-JPO. | ||
In addition, TIPO has set a standard time schedule to process the filing matters of Taiwan patent and trademark applications as shown in the following table. However, as compared with the above average prosecution time results in 2016, the examination time for an invention patent applications will be much shortened especially if the applicant files an AEP or PPH request so as to obtain an earlier protection of its invention.
Standard Time Schedule for Process of Taiwan Patent and Trademark Applications
| Matter | Processing Time |
|---|---|
| Application of Invention Patent | 12 to 36 months (depending on the technical field of patent application) |
| Application of Utility Model Patent | 6 months |
| Application of Design Patent | 6 to 12 months |
| Invalidation of Patent | 15 months |
| Application of Trademark Registration | 8 months |
| Application of Trademark Renewal | 2 months |
| Opposition of Trademark | 5 months |
| Invalidation of Trademark | 6 months |
| Revocation of Trademark | 6 months |
