TIPS^®  Taiwan Intellectual Property Special

Taiwan’s WTO Entry Extends Reciprocity of Claiming Priority First

The legislative branch of Taiwan ratified its WTO membership in November and Taiwan will become the 144th member state of the organization on January 1, 2002. As Taiwan only initiates a reciprocal priority system, allowing applicants from the countries that have concluded reciprocal understandings with Taiwan to claim priority, e.g., ten (10) for patents and five (5) for trademarks. Effective as of January 1, 2002, all applicants from the WTO 143 member states are automatically eligible to claim the priority right.

The Nationalist Party (KMT), one of the world’s richest political organizations, controlled Taiwan’s presidency for five decades and it still holds a legislative majority which it is expected to lose after December 1 legislative election. Taiwan government has dispatched legions of investigators to crack down on vote buying in the coming election, and the island’s biggest opposition party countered by forming its own army: a squad of 100 lawyers. The attorneys will make sure that KMT candidates are being treated fairly by the anticorruption campaign before next month’s election.

So far, numerous candidates – including some from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) – have been investigated by the anticorruption force, which includes about 700 public prosecutors assisted by the police for the first time. With accession to the WTO, regulatory transparency and fair competition policies on IP protections will also be appeared surprisingly undramatic.