Taiwan Intellectual Property Office Issues Latest Patent Updates Various regulations published earlier in 2013 became effective at the beginning of July.  Here are some of the most notable ones: An amendment was made concerning the regulations governing the determination of patent term extensions. The Taiwan Food and Drug Administration will supply data allowing TIPO to calculate the periods of domestic and foreign clinical trials for patent term extension during the regulatory registration of marketing approvals. The service of electronic priority document exchange between the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) and the Korean Intellectual Property Office was extended to design patents. This service not only simplifies transnational filing procedures and saves the time and cost used for sending paper documents, but also accelerates patent examination procedures. Concerning whether a prior art technique disclosed in the specification of an application can be used by the examiner as a citation, if the date of the prior art technique disclosed in the specification cannot be confirmed, the applicant has the possibility of proving the prior art technique belongs to the applicant and has not been disclosed to the public. For divisional applications, if a divisional application is filed based on the invention patent application, the declaration in respect of the invention patent application can be invoked in the divisional application, and if the invention patent application and/or the divisional application are considered to be allowable and to be the same creation as the utility model patent, the examiner should notify the applicant to select either the invention patent application or the divisional application to benefit from the continuation of patent rights. TIPO Issues...

Taiwan Intellectual Property Office Drafts Amendment to the Examination Guidelines on Disclaimers for Trademark Applications The Taiwan Intellectual Office announced on May 2, 2023, that it made a draft amendment to the Examination Guidelines on Disclaimers.  Here are some of the main points: For non-distinctive parts of a trademark, a disclaimer will be necessary even if the combination of words created by the applicant seems original but is just a description of the trademark’s designated goods or services. By issuing a disclaimer for the non-distinctive part, consumers and competitors will understand clearly that the non-distinctive part is not being claimed. Other non-distinctive signs, such as surnames, slogans, idioms, and popular terms that are not descriptive, are often expected by businesses to potentially be part of their exclusive rights. If judged to be non-distinctive, however, such signs should generally be disclaimed. Numbers larger than two, model numbers, and symbols that have been determined to be non-distinctive should be disclaimed. However, if the meaning of the numbers (such as specifications, quantities, time or era) is clear and specific to the product and commonly used in the industry, and if it can be determined that they do not raise any doubt about the scope of the trademark’s rights, they do not need to be disclaimed. Where the position, font size, or proportion of the non-distinctive part of a trademark may affect the applicant’s judgement as to whether to claim the trademark rights to that part, a disclaimer for that part should be made. If there is sufficient evidence during examination to determine that a non-distinctive element is commonly used by the industry...