The “Accelerated Examination Program (AEP)” was launched on January 1, 2009

 

TIPO has developed its own new set of procedures based on the PPH (Patent Prosecution Highway) program to help accelerate the speed of patent examination in Taiwan. An applicant can request for accelerated examination by submitting a copy of the claims and other related documents, when his/her application has been granted under substantial examination by a foreign patent authority. TIPO examiners can send out a notification of the examination result faster with the documents the applicant provided.

 

Applicants requesting for accelerated examination need to provide all required documents and meet the following two criteria: the applicant has been notified by TIPO that the examination or re-examination of the invention patent application will begin shortly, and the same application has been granted under substantial examination by a foreign patent authority. At TIPO, most of our foreign applications come from JPO, USPTO, and EPO. But under AEP, there is no limitation on foreign patent authorities.

 

All invention patent applications currently under substantial examination may request for the accelerated examination.If the applicant has narrowed the scope of the claims according to the office action by TIPO, then the applicant should refrain from using the granted foreign patent that has a broader scope of the claims than the one amended to request for accelerated examination.

 

Required documents:

(a) Request for accelerated examination form;

(b) (1) A copy of the claims of the patent issued by a foreign patent authority (translated Chinese copy required), or (2) a copy of the notice of allowance from a foreign patent authority and the to-be-granted claims (translated Chinese copy required);

(c) An explanation on the differences in claims between the patent application submitted to TIPO and the translated copy mentioned in (b); if there is no difference between the two, the applicant should mark the box “no differences”.

 

Other helpful documents might also be submitted (e.g.: search report, copies of the office actions (which are relevant to patentability) from the foreign patent office (including a summary written in Chinese), copies of references cited by the foreign patent examiner, etc.).

 

The accelerated examination program is scheduled for an initial trial period of one year and may be continued pending a future review.