Taiwan Accelerated Examination Program (AEP) was launched on January 1, 2010 to expedite the examination for an invention patent application. Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) initially provided an AEP request to be filed according to one of three bases. Basically, the AEP is set for an invention patent application with a corresponding foreign application that was either allowed after the foreign patent office conducted substantive examination or is still pending before USPTO, JPO or EPO but office action and search report have been issued. In addition, the AEP can be applied on commercial practice, no matter whether the Taiwan application has any corresponding foreign application. The AEP was then revised on January 1, 2014 to cover inventions pertaining to green technology. Per TIPO’s AEP statistics from 2014 to July 2021, there were 255 AEP filings in connection with green technologies, mainly in the technical fields of solar energy, LED and Lithium battery. To promote the green patents and speed up the commercialization of green products, TIPO has revised the AEP program under Base 4 for the invention from “green energy related technologies” to “green technologies.” This revision expressly expands the scope of green technologies to include energy saving, carbon reduction, resources saving types. Furthermore, the processing time of AEP request on the bases of commercial practice and green technologies has been shortened from 9 months to 6 months. The following table is an update of the revised AEP by TIPO, effective January 1, 2022, for a Taiwan invention patent application.
| Base | Description | Processing Time | Official Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Invention has a corresponding foreign patent application allowed by a foreign patent office after substantive examination | 6 months | nil |
| 2 | Invention has a corresponding foreign pending at USPTO, JPO or EPO with an official action and search report have been issued | 6 months (the foreign claims are the same to the present claims in Taiwan); or 9 months (the foreign claims are different from the present claims in Taiwan) | nil |
| 3 | Invention required for commercial practice | 6 months | NT$4,000 |
| 4 | Invention related to green technology | 6 months | NT$4,000 |
If a Client wishes to file an AEP request, please contact us for the required documents. Although TIPO has scheduled the above time for processing an AEP request upon completion of required documents, yet the actual examination time may vary depending on the complexity of an invention.
