The Taiwan Patent Office (TIPO) has its own set of procedures based on the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) system to accelerate the speed of patent examination. Although Taiwan is currently not part of any PPH agreements with other patent offices, applicants can now submit documents relating to applications recently published or soon to be published in other countries to TIPO in order to help speed up the examination procedure. Following a one-year trial period, TIPO has now introduced a number of amendments to its accelerated procedure. These amendments entered into force on 1 January 2010.

For more information about the amendments to the accelerated examination procedure, see this notice on TIPO's English website: http://www.tipo.gov.tw/ch/News_NewsContent.aspx?NewsID=4269