TIPS^®  Taiwan Intellectual Property Special

China Updates

TAIWAN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SPECIAL  TIPS - DECEMBER, 1996

Guidelines on Claiming Patent Priority Will Be Adopted

The National Bureau of Standards, Taiwan's patent and trademark office, will adopt guidelines on claiming patent priority. The guidelines will cover issues such as provisional patent applications, continuation applications, Patent Cooperation Treaty applications.

Under the new guidelines to be adopted, the following filing dates in a foreign country covered by Taiwan's priority claim understandings, e.g., United States, will be accepted as the priority dates for purposes of a subsequent corresponding application in Taiwan as far as the same disclosure is concerned: (1) the filing date of a provisional application; and (2) the filing date of the first application (parent application or grandparent application) if a continuation application is filed.

It is unclear when the guidelines will be officially issued. We have obtained a copy of the draft guidelines in Chinese, which are available to our readers upon request.