Taiwan's Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) will hold a
public hearing on February 25, 2019 on reforms of administrative
appeals system. According to TIPO's press release, the proposed
reforms are intended to achieve two main objects: delayering the
procedures and adopting an adversary system at TIPO's
level.
First, delayering. Under the current law, TIPO's ruling on a
patent or trademark application or contentious case (e.g. an
inter partes proceeding case like an opposition and
invalidation action) may go through three levels of appeals before
it can become final and irrevocable. The first level of appeal is
reviewed by the Petitions & Appeals Committee of the
Ministry of Economic Affairs. However, insufficient of staff with
technical backgrounds to assist the Committee's panels in
adjudicating patent cases, the Committee reportedly shows a
significant tendency to uphold TIPO's rulings in this regard,
compared with the IP Court and the Supreme
Administrative Court
