The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) is a cross-border patent examination cooperation system that reduces examination times by avoiding repeated prior art searches when the same invention is filed in different countries/regions. As of July 2026, the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) has implemented bilateral PPH cooperation with the foreign patent offices of the following countries.
| Cooperating countries (abbreviation of patent offices) | Enforcement date | PPH model |
|---|---|---|
| United States (USPTO) | 1-Sep-11 | Typical PPH: the applicant must use the patent-approved document issued by the first office of the basic case as grounds for applying for a PPH in the second office. |
| Japan (JPO) | 1-May-12 | Enhanced PPH (MOTTAINAI): If an invention application has been granted a patent in Taiwan or a cooperating country with at least one or more claims, the applicant may apply for PPH in the other country to expedite its examination by utilizing the examination results of either country. |
| Spain (OEPM) | 1-Oct-13 | |
| Korea (MOIP) | 1-Jul-15 | |
| Poland (PPO) | 1-Aug-17 | |
| Canada (CIPO) | 1-Feb-18 | |
| France (INPI) | 1-Jul-25 | |
| Israel (ILPO) | 2-Jan-26 |
In Taiwan, the PPH request must be submitted before the TIPO issues its examination opinion. In principle, the TIPO can obtain copies of relevant documents, including examination opinions, cited documents, and the allowable or published claims of the corresponding foreign application from the patent systems of cooperating countries. If said examination opinions and claims of the foreign application are not in English, the Applicant must submit their Chinese translations. In addition, it is required to fill out a correspondence table for the claims of Taiwan application and foreign application. If the cited references are not patent documents, or if the TIPO cannot obtain the relevant documents online, the Applicant must still submit all required documents.
The following shows the number of PPH requests and examination periods for Taiwan patent invention applications with Japan and Untied States patent offices over the past three years.
| Year | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of PPH cases | 879 cases (TIPO-JPO: 430 cases; TIPO-USPTO: 402 cases) | 944 cases (TIPO-JPO: 453 cases; TIPO-USPTO: 466 cases) | 738 cases (TIPO-JPO: 366 cases; TIPO-USPTO: 348 cases) |
| Average time to first office action | TIPO-JPO: 45.6 days TIPO-USPTO: 46.4 days | TIPO-JPO: 41.3 days TIPO-USPTO: 42.9 days | TIPO-JPO: 35.3 days TIPO-USPTO: 40.6 days |
| Average disposal time | TIPO-JPO: 127 days TIPO-USPTO: 146.3 days | TIPO-JPO: 118.7 days TIPO-USPTO: 143.2 days | TIPO-JPO: 113.8 days TIPO-USPTO: 134.6 days |
In 2025, the average examination time for Taiwanese invention patent applications was 13.8 months, while the average time for issuing first examination opinion was 8.0 months. In comparison, the examination time for PPH cases in Taiwan was shortened to approximately four months.
