We Congratulate Three Partners on Patent Attorney Certification

We hereby extend our congratulations to three partners, Mr. Thomas Tsai, Ms. Candy Chen and Mr. Victor Lee, who have received the Certificates of Patent Attorneys granted by the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) on October 24th, 2008, after completing training programs and passing strict professional examinations held by the TIPO. They are among the 47 certified patent attorneys from the first 50 candidates attending the first training program for patent attorneys who had been qualified for examination waivers. The training program was launched by the TIPO in August 2008 under the Paten Attorney Law.

There are two channels available to obtain a patent attorney certificate upon the promulgation of the Patent Attorney Law: one is to pass the state-held patent attorney examinations and then complete a pre-practice training program; the other, which is reserved for professionals with practical experience and once practicing as named patent attorneys, is to obtain an examination waiver qualification subject to the recognition of the TIPO and the Ministry of Examination, attend the TIPO’s professional training program and pass the relevant examinations.

According to the TIPO’s statistics, there are about 300 professionals across Taiwan who are qualified for examination waivers. They will need to attend professional training programs in six terms within three years and, after completing the training and programs and passing the examinations, will be eligible to obtain patent attorney certificates. As for the first state-held examination for the qualification of patent attorneys, the list of successful participants will be published on November 12th, 2008.

As required by the provisions in Article 16 of the Patent Attorney Law, an association of patent attorneys shall be organized once the number of TIPO-registered patent attorneys reaches fifteen. Therefore, the first batch of certified patent attorneys has nominated five representatives to form a liaison team for preparation work, of which our managing partner Mr. Thomas Tsai is a member.