According to an explanatory report titled "Metaverse and
Design Patents in Taiwan" the Taiwan IP Office (TIPO)
published on June 13, 2022, the visual appearance of a virtual
object represented by an NFT (hereafter "NFT-associated
design" for short) can be protected as a
"computer image design."
It is widely believed that views in the said Report will be
adopted by examiners as the basic principles for examining
metaverse/NFT-related design applications before the next update of
the Examination Guidelines.
Computer image designs
While the Examination Guidelines indicates that "computer
image designs" include GUIs and computer icons, the
Examination Guidelines' wording leaves room for inclusion of
other types of computer generated images in this category, hence
the above opinion in the Report. Note the Report does not
categorize NFT-associated designs as GUIs or computer icons.
