TIPS^®  Taiwan Intellectual Property Special

Proposed Rules for the Deposit of Microorganisms

Article 26 of the newly amended Patent Law of Taiwan requires that, prior to filing an invention patent application for a microorganism-related invention, the applicant shall deposit the microorganism in a domestic depositary institution designated by Taiwan’s Intellectual Property Office (TIPO). A certificate of deposit issued by the depositary institution shall be submitted to TIPO within three months after filing. A deposit made to a foreign depositary institute may suffice if the applicant has stated so at the time of filing, and the certificates issued by both domestic and foreign depositary institutions have been submitted to TIPO within three months after filing. The designated domestic depositary institute is the Culture Collection and Research Center of the Food Industry Research and Development Institute.

A proposed draft of “Rules for the Deposit of Microorganisms for Patent Purposes” was released by the TIPO for comments on Jan 8, 2002. In the newly proposed deposit rules, to obtain an effective date of deposit, the depositor is requested to submit application form for deposit, basic information of the microorganism, appropriate form and necessary quantity of the microorganism to be deposited, and relevant fees. In case of depositing an imported microorganism, an import permit is required as well.

Once an invention patent has been granted to the microorganism-related patent application, any one may request for distribution of the deposited microorganism. However, for microorganism-related patent application that has been laid-opened after 18 months from filing, the said microorganism can be distributed upon request for research and/or experimental purposes.