The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office recently issued an announcement explaining that an amendment or post-grant amendment where a disclaimer is introduced in a claim can only be made to exclude a part that overlaps with a single prior art or to exclude a statutory non-patentable subject matter, as the following:
 

1. According to Section 4.2.2(7) in Chapter 6 of Part 2 of the Patent Examination Guidelines, an exclusionary amendment can be made with a negative expression to exclude a part that overlaps with the prior art, wherein the “prior art” is limited as below:

(i) a citation that may prove that a claim is not novel (Article 22.I(1) of the Patent Act);

(ii) a citation that may prove that a claim lacks novelty based on legal fiction (Article 23 of the Patent Act);

(iii) a citation that may prove that a claim violates the first-to-file principle (Article 31 of the Patent Act); however, if the citation has the same filing date as the application, an exclusionary amendment is still not applicable (with an exception under Article 31.II of the Patent Act).

2. An exclusionary amendment can be made to exclude a part involving “humans” from an article claim.

3. An exclusionary amendment can be made to exclude a “step implemented on living humans or animals” from a method claim.

(Translated and summarized from the News and the attachment announced on the website of the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office)