Taking 18 Years to Draw Up, Proposed Patent Attorneys Act Passed Preliminary Legislative Review Except Provision on Exemption of Exam for Practicing Patent Agents.

The proposed Patent Attorneys Act passed the preliminary review at the 19 April 2006 committee meeting of the Economics and Energy Committee of the Legislative Yuan.  According to the proposed Act, licensed patent attorneys who passed the patent attorneys’ exam will be legally authorized to handle patent applications, oppositions, invalidation actions, assignments, trusts, pledge, licensing recordation, compulsory licensing and other matters relating to patents as provided for in the Patent Act.  The proposed provisions the preliminary legislative include, among others, the condition for disqualifying a patent attorney.  A licensed patent attorney will be disqualified when (i) he or she is sentenced to one year or more under a Taiwanese foreign judgment on a crime he or she committed in connection with his or her profession and such judgment has become final with binding effects, or (ii) he or she is de-registered by operation of a legal disposition to such effect, (iii) he or she is interdicted and the relevant ruling is still valid in force, (iv) he or she is adjudicated bankrupt pending reinstatement of rights, (iv) he or she is determined as incapable of practicing his or her profession according to the diagnosis on his or her mental disease or disorder.

 

Foreign nationals may take the patent attorneys’ exam in accordance with the law of Taiwan.  They may practice as patent attorneys in Taiwan obtaining approval from the Ministry of Economic Affairs after passing the exam and shall practice in compliance with the laws and regulations of Taiwan and the Articles of Association of the Patent Attorneys’ Association.  Further, foreign-national patent attorneys shall speak and write in the languages spoken and written in Taiwan when presenting statement(s) to the relevant government agencies.

 

Some legislators proposed at the preliminary review of the proposed Act that the patent agents currently practicing (about 8,000) be exempt from taking the required exam.  Thus they moved that the relevant provisions of the proposed Act (Article 33) be referred to legislative negotiation by the legislators from all parties.

 

According to TSAI Lian-Sheng, TIPO’s Director General, licensed patent agents may continue practicing patent agency and relevant administrative matters in the capacity as a patent agent after the Patent Attorneys Act comes into force.  He added obtaining patent attorney admission is not patent agents’ only choice and admitting all of the practicing patent agents as licensed patent attorneys exam-free would be unfair to those who must pass the patent attorneys’ exam to be able to practice as a patent attorney.  (2006.04)

/EMA