In May, during the Taiwan–France Economic and Trade Dialogue, the Director General of the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) and the Director of the French National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) signed a memorandum of cooperation to set up the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program. This PPH framework offers fast-track examination for invention patent applications by allowing the two offices to share examination results, thereby shortening the prosecution timeline from examination to grant.

  During the Dialogue, the Director General of TIPO, Mr. Cheng-wei Liao, emphasized that France is Taiwan’s 18th largest trading partner globally and the 3rd largest within the European Union, with bilateral trade amounting to USD 6.54 billion. The Taiwan–France PPH program is expected to further strengthen IP cooperation, enhance outbound patent strategies for Taiwanese companies, and support industrial competitiveness in the EU region.

  To date, TIPO has entered into bilateral PPH agreements with seven IP authorities, including the United States, Japan, Spain, South Korea, Poland, Canada, and now France. The PPH agreement with the U.S. follows the regular version, while the others adopt the MOTTAINAI model, which allows the second-filed application, if it receives an examination opinion earlier, to be used reversely to accelerate the first-filed application.

  According to TIPO’s recently released Annual Report 2024, the average pendency for a first office action under PPH is approximately 41 to 43 days, and the overall pendency to a decision is between 118 to 143 days (about 3.9 to 4.7 months). This signifies a significant improvement compared to the pendency of 14.15 months under the regular examination process.

  The most frequently used PPH programs are those between Taiwan and the United States and between Taiwan and Japan. The latest statistics, shown in the table below, provide a breakdown of PPH requests by country.

  In addition to PPH mechanisms, Taiwan offers various examination pacing options to accommodate different stages of a product’s commercialization and development. For expedited review, TIPO also offers:

• The Accelerated Examination Program (AEP), which prioritizes applications based on foreign examination results from offices not in a PPH agreement with Taiwan, delivering a first office action in 41–75 days;
• The TW-Support Using the PPH Agreement (TW-SUPA), which accelerates first-filed Taiwanese applications based on existing PPHs, with first office actions issued in about 28 days; and
• The Startups Accelerated Patent Examination Pilot Program, which achieves an average pendency of 70.3 days.
• The Accelerated Examination Pilot Program for Women-Invented Patent, launched on July 1, 2025, to encourage innovation and invention made by women. An application is eligible when it is filed by natural person(s) only and at least one of the applicants is a female who is also the inventor or a co-inventor. Under acceleration, the first OA or allowance decision will be issued in six months from the time an application is qualified.

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