As the number of patent filing cases in Taiwan are slightly declined over the past three years (from 85073 cases in 2012, 83211 cases in 2013 to 78014 cases in 2014), Taiwan Intellectual Property Office has recently made an announcement in order to encourage especially foreign companies to file patent applications in Taiwan. The full text of said announcement is provided below.
Re: Gaining a competitive edge with Taiwan patents
- What are the benefits for filing a patent application in Taiwan?
- Innovation protection and tax deduction
Filing a patent application is the primary strategy a corporation uses to safeguard the results of its innovation and R&D, thereby increasing its competitiveness. Corporations that are actively filing patent applications in Taiwan to map out and create values for their inventions are better able to reduce the danger of being accused of patent infringement and to increase the profitability cycle of their product. In addition, right holders obtaining stocks from companies in exchange for their patent rights may have their tax deferred until the sale of said stocks. - Developing your global patent portfolios
Over the years, Taiwan has gradually become prominent for foreign corporations mapping out their patent portfolios. Statistically, the numbers of applications (28112, 27488, and 27276) filed by foreign nationals have witnessed a steady growth over the past three years, a fact that attests to Taiwan’s globally-acclaimed environment for patent protection. Also, with Taiwan sharing the same linguistic and cultural roots with mainland China, Taiwan is seen by many as a key portal for their entry into the mainland and global markets.
- Innovation protection and tax deduction
- What makes filing a patent application in Taiwan stand out?
- Impressive patent examination speed
- The average pendency of first office action for invention patent applications was lowered to 21.16 months in December 2014 from 27.88 months in January of the same year. TIPO will continue to work toward shortening the average pendency for first office action.
- The average disposal pendency was lowered from the peak of 47 months in 2012 to 28 months in February 2015. TIPO is hoping that by the end of 2015, the disposal pendency will have been shortened to 24 months.
- Impressive quality
- While exerting effort to speed up examination, TIPO is also working on the Project for Optimizing Patent Examination Quality through the establishment of a set of objective reviewing criteria and a mechanism for quality feedback to enable expedited improvement of examination quality.
- Take patent administrative litigation cases, the rate of agency decisions being revoked by court dropped from 19.26% in 2013 to 6.9% in 2014, indicating improved patent examination quality. The win-rate of plaintiffs in civil infringement cases went up to 25% in 2014, nearing that in the UK (22%), Germany (26%), and Japan (20%), respectively.
- Currently, TIPO is partnering with the JPO, the USPTO, and the SPTO on PPH to enable mutual use of search and examination results, speed up patent examination, and improve patent examination quality. TIPO will continue to seek similar partnerships with other IP offices in hopes of creating an internationalized environment for IPR protection through harmonizing patent regimes across nations.
- Lower cost
In line with its continuous effort to establish a reasonable fees structure, TIPO has lowered the charges of the following:- Applicants providing an additional abstract of their patent applications in English will be eligible for fee reduction. This is to enable data exchange among IP offices and facilitate convenient searches by foreign investors planning to do business in Taiwan.
- Applicants filing patent applications online are eligible for fee reduction.
- With statutory patent annuities having been significantly lowered, holders of patent right that are natural persons, educational institutions or SMEs can now make their payments according to the lowered rates and then apply to further lower their annuities of 1st through 6th year according to the Regulations for Reduction and Exemption of Patent Annuities.
- Impeccable Service
- To date, TIPO has created an environment for convenient patent application and search and will continue to achieve the objective of providing efficient and friendly online service through the establishment of a 24/7, all-year-round e-filing system.
- TIPO provides an in-person service that allows applicants to gain expert opinions firsthand from patent examiners to help them quickly obtain patents. The office also establishes a comprehensive patent strategy and portfolio on certain key technologies via group examination to enable examiners to quickly grasp the technologies involved in an application and thereby to improve examination efficacy.
- As part of its effort to help the industries strengthen their patent portfolios and create an optimal environment for innovation, TIPO has over the past few years put lots of effort to the following: organizing 20 forums on industries developing patent portfolios, establishing a communications-related patent database and a search platform for the purpose of compiling the research results (2013-2015) of over 8,000 communications-related key industrial SEPs and non-SEPs, as well as conducting patent litigation and trends analyses of key industries. All of the above may serve as tactics to patent applicants facing lawsuits and as guidance to administrators making relevant decisions.
- Impressive patent examination speed
