Crystal Chen

Liu holds a utility model (“UM”) patent M508941 for an umbrella featuring a foldable shell; the patent was granted on September 21, 2015. From September 22, 2015 to December of the same year, Liu sent warning letters to several Taiwanese online marketplaces, including GOMAJI, Buy123, 17Life and Poya, alleging that umbrella products provided by Splendors Biotech Co., LTD. were infringing on UM M’941. In order to avoid legal disputes, some marketplaces removed Splendors’ umbrella products.

Taiwan, intellectual property protection for new plants is provided through plant variety rights. The five statutory requirements for a new plant variety right are novelty, proper variety name, distinctness, uniformity and stability. The first two are formality requirements, whereas the latter three are substantive ones.

Patent The Taiwan IP Office offers applicants the flexibility to align patent prosecution with their product commercialization timelines or the examination pace of corresponding foreign applications. In order to enable the slowing down of the examination, the Invention Patent Application Delayed Examination Program was introduced in March 2015. Following extensive feedback over the years, the TIPO has drafted revisions to the Program to sufficiently meet the needs of current users.