Taiwan and South Korea Sign MoU on Design Patent Priority Document Exchange
Taiwan and Korea signed an MoU on Electronic Exchange of Priority Document (PDX) for Design Patents on November 12, 2021, following the collaboration between Taiwan and Japan on Design Patent Priority Document Exchange in 2019. Through bilateral cooperation between the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office and the Korean Intellectual Property Office, applicants are exempt from submitting priority documents in hard copy.
Sept. 2021 Revision of the Article-by-Article Interpretation of the Trademark Act
To promote public awareness of the Trademark Act, TIPO published the Article-by-Article Interpretation of the Trademark Act in 2004 and has continued to revise it in response to amendments to relevant laws. After the previous revision (January 2017), the attached list to Article 19 of the Enforcement Rules of the Trademark Act and the infringement identifying process in Article 7 and 9 of the Regulations Governing Customs Measures in Protecting the Rights and Interests of Trademark have been amended. Additionally, a number of examination guidelines have also been established or amended, including the Principles for Examining Trademarks Which Include the “Cross Device”, Operational Directions for Third-Party Observations on Trademark Registration Applications, and Examination Guidelines on Procedural Examination of Applications for Trademark Registration. Trademark-related laws and judicial practices have changed considerably, hence the revision this year.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and The State Council Issued the “Guidelines for Building a Powerful Country with Intellectual Property Rights (2021-2035)”
On September 22, 2021, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the “Guidelines for Building a Powerful Country with Intellectual Property Rights (2021-2035)”. The Guidelines set numerical development goals for intellectual property as well as other goals such as “deep participation in global intellectual property governance.”
2020 Invention Patent Application Trends across Technology Fields during COVID-19 Pandemic
In 2020, TIPO received 43,921 invention patent applications. Among them, resident applications remained stable, while non-resident applications decreased by 6%. South Korea rose by 5.5% among filing countries/regions, while Japan, the US, mainland China, and Germany dropped by 2%~8%. Semiconductors and computer technology took the top 2 spots among 35 technology fields. However, their downward trajectories, coupled with the decrease in digital communication filings, were considered to be the major cause of the dip in overall invention filings. On the other hand, the applications filed in the fields of medical technology and biotechnology saw double-digit growth.
Intellectual Property Office Ministry of Economic Affairs, R.O.C.
TIPO has updated its classification list of industrial designs in accordance with the 13th edition of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Locarno Classification for Industrial Designs (effective since 2021); changes include newly added categories for various arrangements of shop interiors and window displays as well as emerging technologies such as virtual reality devices.
