Page 23 - 2018 Annual Report Taiwan Intellectual Property Office

II. IPR EXAMINATIONS AND SERVICES
TIPO is committed to providing quality examination and services. In 2018, the first office action pendency for both invention patent and trademark hit a 10-year low. On the other hand, our office held the first hearing of a patent invalidity case, and commenced the Trademark Examination Quality Consultation Committee meetings, further improving the quality of patent and trademark examination.
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Current Status
After the Patent Backlog Reduction Project expired in 2017, the average disposal pendency for invention patents was down to 14 months, and pending applications were down to around 46,000 cases in 2018. These efforts led to outstanding performance.
Patent Examination
TIPO ANNUAL REPORT
Invention Patent Examination
Invention Patent Examination
Number Pending Requests for Substantive Examination Number of Total Disposals
69,972
41,252
.
68,163
61,287
46,469
There were 41,991 requests for substantive examination of invention patent applications, 39,528 disposals, and 46,443 pending cases.
Compared to 2017, there was a slight increase in the number of requests for substantive examination. The number of examiners was down because of the expiry in April 2017 of five-year contracts for the 170 examiners, but we worked hard to balance between the numbers of disposals and requests for substantive examination.
40,475 38,382 40,124
41,991
39,528
Year
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Number Pending
100,580
72,892
50,293
44,002
46,443
Examination Results of Invention Patent Applications
Unit: Case, %
30,585
880
Item Year
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Allowance
Cases
44,337
45,796
44,891
35,756
77.4%
8,063
20.4%
Percentage
63.3%
67.2%
73.3%
76.9%
Rejection
Cases
23,763
20,796
14,782
9,741
Percentage
34.0%
30.5%
24.1%
21.0%
Others(including withdrawals and not accepted)
Cases
1,872
1,571
1,614
972
Percentage
2.7%
2.3%
2.6%
2.1%
2.2%
Note:1.Percentage is derived from using the number of total disposals as the denominator and allowance, rejection, and others as the numerators.
2. Overall disposals include allowances, rejections, and others.
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II IPR EXAMINATIONS AND SERVICES