In order to speed up the examination process of an invention patent application, Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) has signed bilateral agreements of Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program with the foreign patent office of United States, Japan, Spain, Korea, Poland or Canada, respectively. For an invention patent application of identical contents filed in Taiwan and one of these countries, the applicant may file a PPH request for invention patent application by using the relevant examination result of the corresponding foreign application if one or more claims are allowed after examination.
The following table shows the filing number of PPH cases in Taiwan from 2011 to 2018:
| PPH bilateral agreement | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TIPO – USPTO | 39 | 252 | 271 | 321 | 327 | 343 | 542 | 457 |
| TIPO - JPO | - | 208 | 493 | 515 | 523 | 455 | 471 | 437 |
| TIPO - SPTO | - | - | - | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| TIPO – KIPO | - | - | - | - | 6 | 20 | 14 | 18 |
| TIPO - PPO | - | - | - | - | - | - | 0 | 0 |
| TIPO - CIPO | - | - | - | - | - | - | 0 | 2 |
Per the statistics from TIPO, the applicants who filed PPH requests were mainly from United States and Japan. According to the above table, PPH cases based on TIPO-USPTO and TIPO-JPO in 2018 were decreased 15.68% and 7.21%.
However, TIPO’s the processing time for PPH cases in 2018 was shortened as compared with those of the previous years. The average time for TIPO to issue examination results for PPH cases in 2018 is shown as follows:
| 平均首 Average time for issuing the first examination opinion | 36.5 36.5 days (1.2 months) |
| 平均審 Average time for issuing the examination decision | 122天 122 days (4.1 months) |
According to the standard processing time set by TIPO, it will take about 18 to 24 months for the examination of an invention patent application. Therefore, if an invention patent application has met the requirements under PPH program, the applicant could file a PPH request with TIPO to obtain patent protection faster than a normal patent application.
