Taiwan Patent Grace Period Big Extension
Economic Commission of the Legislative Yuan passed the Draft amendments to the provisions of the Patent Law on December 30, 2016. According to the updated Patent Law, article 22, the grace period would be extended from 6 months to 12 months.
The current restrictive conditions of grace period such as experimental disclosure, published publications, exhibition display and unintentional disclosure, would be amended to be intentionally or unintentionally disclosed by the patent applicant.
Furthermore, the amendment of Taiwan Patent Law, Article 22, deleted the regulation that when applying for a patent, the applicant must declare a grace period at the same time. In other words, from then on, the applicants do not need to declare a grace period any more.
This amendment can be said to be a big release in patent application procedure. It will be beneficial to innovation and technology circulation.