Newsletter
PATENT AGENT ACT BEING FORMULATED
In accordance with a 2001 proposal of the Eco-nomic Development Advisory Conference, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has proposed a draft pursuant to Subparagraph 4, Article 11 of the Patent Act to raise the professional standards for agents, which includes five chapters and forty-three articles. The main points of the draft Act include the following:
The draft Act stipulates the qualifications of patent agents, as well as the procedure for ap-plying for a patent agent license (Articles 2 to 4).
It prescribes pre-practice training, registration, manner of practice, scope of practice, practice regulations, and other matters concerning an agent's responsibilities (Articles 5, 6 and 8 to 14).
It states that a patent agent should join a patent agent association (Article 15).
It prescribes matters related to organization of a patent agent association, as well as the guidance and supervision over the association by the competent authority (Articles 16 to 24).
It provides for causes of sanctions against patent agents, procedure and methods of sanctions, organization of a sanction commit-tee, as well as sanctions applicable to persons practicing without a license (Articles 25 to, 31 and 32).
It prescribes that an existing patent agent who meets certain qualification requirements may apply for an exemption from the examinations (Article 35).
It stipulates that existing patent agents may continue to practice in patent and the related administrative matters (Article 39).
We will watch the progress of such enactment and keep our readers advised in due course.