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Exchange of views with Taiwan IP Office

Members of the Asia PJ exchanged views with Director General Wang Mei-Hua of the Taiwan IP Office (TIPO), Director Cheung Yu-ying of the Copyright Division and Senior Examiner Wu Jia-ying of Patent Division II, who were in Japan, at the Japan-Taiwan Interchange Association (Roppongi, Minato-ku) on march 12, 2015.

TIPO and JIPA have established a very good relationship, and JIPA has submitted its timely opinions to TIPO on TIPO's various measures and legislative activities regarding intellectual property in Taiwan, many of which have been reflected in the recent amendments of the law, etc. In the present exchange of views, JIPA thanked again Director General Wang for TIPO's recent efforts such as a mutual deposit system of biological materials the introduction of which was agreed on between Japan and Taiwan last year, and the extension of the duration term of design rights (from 12 years to 15 years from the filing date of the application) now under consideration in TIPO, etc., in which TIPO reflected JIPA's requests.

In addition to these, we exchanged information about the progress of the copyright law revision, on which the TIPO is currently working, and the actual operations of the Japanese law in the present exchange of views. Besides, we exchanged views about the industry-academia collaboration, which is expected to become active in Taiwan in the future, relating to what companies think and do in connection with intellectual property. Further, JIPA asked a few questions regarding the contents of the lectures by Director General Wang and Director Cheung in the Taiwan intellectual property seminar, which was held and sponsored by the Interchange Association on March 11, the day before the exchange.

Although the electronic filing system has been introduced for the filing of the patents and trademarks in Taiwan, it tends to be used less often by Taiwan attorney's offices having major business connections with Japanese companies than by the other Taiwan attorney's offices, and we received a request from TIPO that we should encourage Japanese companies to use the electronic filing system more positively. We would appreciate it if JIPA member companies would encourage their Taiwanese attorneys to use the electronic filing system more actively when they file patent or trademark applications in Taiwan. In the electronic filing, the filing fees are advantageously discounted, i.e., 600 yuan off per IP (patent, utility model, or design) application, and 300 yuan off per trademark application.

[Update 2015-04-13 ]