Date: 1 January, 2017

【Volume 1】

The Economics Committee of the Legislative Yuan (Taiwan) has passed the Third Reading on partial articles of the Taiwan Patent Act on 30th December, 2016. This amendment is concerning the relaxation of rules on grace period, and the details are as follows:

1. For invention patent and utility model patent, the grace period for non-prejudicial disclosures will change from 6 months to 12 months. (The grace period of design patent continues to be 6 months.)
2. Under the current Patent Act, a grace period is only available when “the invention was publicly disclosed as a result of conducting a test; in a printed publication; displayed at an exhibition held or recognized by the Government; or publicly disclosed without the consent of the applicant”. The proposed amendment of the Patent Act will provide an applicant with a grace period when he/she publicly discloses the invention intentionally or unintentionally.
3. Remove the current regulation that the declaration of grace period for non-prejudicial disclosures must be made on the filing date of patent application. In other words, the declaration is not required when filing the patent application.

Wisdom will keep you updated on any further developments.

(Reference: Taiwan Intellectual Property Office )