TIPS^®  Taiwan Intellectual Property Special

The revised draft was divided into 5 chapters. The major points are summarized below.

1. Governing patent attorneys and patent agents under a parallel system.

2. Setting up the requirements for patent attorneys and the procedures to acquire the certificates.

3. Governing the practice and responsibility of patent attorneys, such as training, registration, responsibility, and practice scopes of the registered patent attorneys.

4. Requiring all the patent attorneys shall join in a patent attorney union and providing regulations and supervisions to such unions.

5. Stipulating the circumstances that a patent attorney may subject to discipline, and providing the disciplinary procedures, the punishments, and the establishment of the discipline committee.

6. Allowing foreign nations to be qualified for practices and providing regulations for foreign patent attorneys.

7. Permitting those patent attorneys who has registered to practice prior to the enactment of the Patent Attorney Law to continue their practice, and providing relevant regulations.

The proposed draft is supposed to be reviewed by the Legislative Yuan in June and expected to be passed by the end of this year (2002).