Newsletter
MOEA ANNOUNCES LIST OF RECOGNIZED FOREIGN PATENT DEPOSITORIES
Further to our previous report on the 2001 Patent Law amendment, the timing requirement for making local deposits of microorganisms for microorganism-related patent applications have been relaxed under certain conditions. The fol-lowing is a summary of the new practice:
For a patent application covering a microorgan-ism per se invention or an invention utilizing microorganism, an applicant must, prior to filing the ROC patent application, deposit the relevant microorganism with the depository located in the ROC. This local deposit requirement can be waived if persons skilled in the art can easily obtain the concerned microorganism. A deposit certificate can be submitted to the IPO within 3 months from the day following the date of filing the ROC patent application, but the name of depository, the date of deposit and the deposit number must be reported to the IPO on the date of filing the ROC application.
If, prior to filing the ROC patent application, the concerned microorganism has been deposited with a foreign depository recognized by the IPO, and if the applicant declares the above fact when filing his ROC patent application and submits to the IPO (1) a deposit certificate issued by the ROC depository, as well as (2) a certificate is-sued by the foreign depository within three months from the day following the date of filing the ROC application, the above pre-filing local deposit requirement will not apply. In other words, the applicant may make the local deposit after filing the ROC patent application, and submit to the IPO a deposit certificate issued by the ROC depository within the 3-month time limit.
On 26 October 2001, the MOEA announced a list of recognized foreign depositories as follows:
| Country | Depository |
| Australia (AU) | Australian Government Analytical Laboratories (AGAL) |
| Belgium (BE) | Belgian Coordinated Col-lections of Microorgan-isms (BCCMTM) |
| Bulgaria (BG) | National Bank for Indus-trial Microorganisms and Cell Cultures (NBIMCC) |
| Canada (CA) | Bureau of Microbiology at Health Canada (BMHC) |
| China (CN) | China Center for Type Culture Collection (CCTCC) China General Microbi-ological Culture Center (CGMCC) |
| Czech Republic (CZ) | Czech Collection of Mi-croorganisms (CCM) |
| France (FR) | Collection Nationale de Cultures de Mi-cro-organismes (CNCM) |
| Germany (DE) | Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH (DSMZ) |
| Hungary (HU) | National Collection of Agricultural and Industrial Microorganisms (NCAIM) |
| Italy (IT) | Advanced Biotechnology Center (ABC)Collection of Industrial Yeasts DBVPG |
| Japan (JP) | International patent Or-ganism Depositary (IPOD) |
| Latvia (LV) | Microbial Strain Collec-tion of Latvia (MSCL) |
| Netherlands (NL) | Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures (CBS) |
| Poland (PL) | IAFB Collection of Indus-trial Microorganisms Pol-ish Collection of Micro-organisms (PCM) |
| Republic of Ko-rea (KR) | Korean Cell Line Research Foundation (KCLRF)Korean Collection for Type Cultures (KCTC)Korean Culture Center of Microorganisms (KCCM) |
| Russian Federa-tion (RU) | National Research Center of Antibiotics (NRCA)Russian Collection of Mi-croorganisms (VKM)Russian National Collec-tion of IndustrialMicroorganisms (VKPM), GNII Genetika |
| Slovakia (SK) | Culture Collection of Yeasts (CCY) |
| Spain (ES) | Colección Espańola de Cultivos Tipo (CECI) |
| United Kingdom (GB) | Culture Collection of Al-gae and Protozoa (CCAP)European Collection of Cell Cultures (ECACC) |
| International Mycological Institute (IMI) | National Collection of Type Cultures (NCTC)National Collection of Yeast Cultures (NCYC)National Collections of Industria, Food and Ma-rine Bacteria (NCIMB) |
| United States of America (US) | Agricultural Research Service Culture Collection (NRRL)American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) |