International Activities

Exchange of views with the Taiwan IP Office

The Asia PJ exchanged views with representatives of the Taiwan IP Office (TIPO), on March 22, 2017 at the Tokyo headquarters of the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association. Ms. HONG, Shu-min, Director General, and Ms. Ping-Lun Hu, Secretary of the Trademark Division, who were in Japan, participated in the meeting from TIPO. Mr. Bekku, Managing Director, and four other JIPA members joined the meeting.

At the beginning, TIPO provided information about the most recent revision of the Patent Act relaxing the requirements for the grace period, which, they said, would enter into force on May 1, 2017.

JIPA asked about other planned revisions of Taiwanese IP laws, and exchanged opinions with them on the progress of study on the requests from JIPA which had been made in the opinion exchange meeting in Taipei last November, and on the status of operation of the third party submission scheme for Taiwanese trademark applications. TIPO explained that they would reflect some of the JIPA requests including a prolonged term of design rights in the revision of the Patent Act which was underway. TIPO also told that in Taiwan, the provision by a third party of relevant information on the prior art for trademark applications is not clearly stipulated by statute but is being actively used in terms of operation.

The delegation had met and exchanged opinions with Ms. HONG, Shu-min, Director General, who was promoted from Deputy Director General last year, also in the last November's visit to Taiwan. JIPA and TIPO hold annual meetings of this sort and exchange opinions amicably, and we agreed to continue to do so in the future.

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