TIPS^®  Taiwan Intellectual Property Special

Significant Reduction in Patent Pendency

According to the Patent Authority of Taiwan, as of September 22, 2004, there are
a total of 84,700 patent applications pending before the TIPO, which is a reduction of
23% from the year of 2002. The TIPO indicated that the reduced patent pendency
will facilitate the development and market growth of high-tech products with relative
short life cycles. Such significant reduction is mainly attributed to the TIPO’s
efforts to examine a total of 43,300 utility model patent applications prior to July 1,
2004, on which date the registration system of utility model patent applications took
effect. The TIPO has also expedited the process of examining invention and design
patent applications, which amounted to a total of 79,000 patent cases during the
period spanning from January 2003 through August 2004. In addition, the reduction
may also be attributed to the fact that, only about 66% of the invention patent
applications that have been filed since October 26, 2002 on which date the early
publication of invention patent application took effect, requested substantive
examination.

The TIPO promised that they will continue to adopt quality control programs to
monitor the examination quality so as to balance the expedited examination.