2019 Annual Report Intellectual Property Office

III. IPR LEGAL REGIME 02 Trademark Laws and Regulations Trademark Act Trademark Laws and Examination Guidelines Administrative Rules and Trademark Examination Guidelines (6) Chapter II ("Invalidation against Patent Term Extension") of Sect ion V:Delet ing the ground for inval idat ion against the extens ion of patent term "where the request for ex t ens i on i s based on t he t ime spen t on c ondu c t i ng t r i a l s o r tests in a foreign country, the extended term gran t ed by t he Spec i f i c Pa t en t Agency exceeds the period approved by the foreign patent authority." • Regulations Governing Technical Evaluation Report for Utility Model Patents In response to the needs of different sectors, TIPO published the revised the procedure for issuing technical evaluation reports of utility model patents on July 1. TIPO will send a notification containing technical report citations to the patentee whose claims do not meet the novelty or inventive step requirements, to allow for submission of supplementary explanations. Relevant regulations can be accessed at TIPO's "Utility model patent technical report Q&A" webpage. • Draft Amendment to the Trademark Act To improve trademark examination practices, TIPO began preparation work on the draft amendment to the Trademark Act. Following a public hearing on October 15, TIPO published the draft amendment on November 26. The draft included a total of 14 amended and 2 new articles. The key revisions include: introduce priority examination and trademark agent management system; prescribe the subject matters of eligible trademark applicants; relax procedural requirements for claiming priority rights; and relax regulations governing the peremption in the filing of a trademark invalidation request and the threshold for providing evidence in a trademark revocation request. • Operational Directions of Third-party Observations for Trademark Applications To supplement examination information and increase examination accuracy, TIPO referenced other nations' practices and subsequently published the "Operational Directions of Third- party Observations for Trademark Applications" on June 20. Effective on the same day, the Directions are useful for people wishing to learn more about relevant procedures. • Notices Regarding the Use of Registered Trademarks As e-commerce continues to flourish, more and more trademark holders are providing evidence taken from the Internet. Given this, TIPO amended and published the Notices Regarding the Use of 2019 TIPOANNUAL REPORT 47