The amended Taiwan Patent Act became effective on June 13, 2013 wherein the most important change to the right of the applicant is the substantive protection period of certain inventions (at least with an article as the subject matter) can be extended by applying for both invention patent and utility model patent with declarations at the same time.

Specifically, based on the statistics of the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office, the average examination decision period is 43 months for invention patents and 4 months for utility model patents respectively in 2012. By concurrently applying for an extra utility model patent in addition to an invention patent, the applicant might protect his/her invention starting from 4 months instead of 43 months after filing. In other words, the protection period is substantively extended from 16.4 to 19.7 years on average, wherein the protection is firstly attained by the utility model patent and then continued by the invention patent.

We provide an attractive discount for simultaneously filing both invention and utility model applications in Taiwan. If you need more information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Article 32 of the Patent Act

Where an applicant files an invention patent application and a utility model patent application for the same creation on the same date, a declaration shall be made respectively upon filing; if the utility model patent application has been granted before a decision of admission is issued on the invention patent application, the Specific Patent Agency shall notify the applicant to select one patent application within a specified time limit. The invention patent application shall not be granted if the applicant fails to make such declarations respectively or to make the selection within the specified time limit.

Where the applicant selects the invention patent application according to the provision set forth in the preceding paragraph, the utility model patent right shall extinguish since the publishing date of the invention patent.

The invention patent application shall not be granted if the utility model patent right has extinguished or has been invalidated before a decision is issued on the invention patent application.