Newsletter
Amendment of Regulations on Application for Deferment of Substantive Examination of ROC (Taiwan) Design Patent Applications
In order to provide patent applicants greater flexibility in filing strategy and thereby strengthen patent portfolios and facilitate patent commercialization, the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) has made the following amendments to the Regulations on Application for Deferment of Substantive Examination of Design Patent Applications (hereinafter referred to as "Regulations"):
1. The original Regulations provide the following two conditions where an application for deferment of substantive examination of a design application is not allowed: (1) an office action or a decision has been issued for said application; or (2) a divisional application has been filed based on said application.
To accommodate the trial Regulations for Acceleration of Design Patent Examination, a third condition is added to the amended Regulations to explicitly stipulate a scenario where filing an application for deferment of substantive examination of a design application will be prohibited: (3) if a request for acceleration examination of said design application has been filed.
2. The timeframe is expanded for an applicant to file a request for deferment of substantive examination of a design application with a priority claim—from "within one year from the priority date" to "within one year from the filing date."
3. The timeframe is expanded for an applicant to file a request for continuing the substantive examination of a design application with a priority claim—from "within one year from the priority date" to "within one year from the filing date."
The amendments to the Regulations took effect 1 September 2023. If you have any questions regarding the amended Regulations, please feel free to contact us.