Newsletter
TRADEMARK ACT ENFORCE-MENT RULES UNDER AMEND-MENT
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has an-nounced draft amendments to the Trademark Act Enforcement Rules. The main points are as follows:
．The applicants of the dispute cases no longer need to submit the Certificate of Incorpora-tion/Nationality unless so instructed by the IPO
Under the current Enforcement Rules, an ap-plicant for application for registration of trademark needs to submit the Certificate of Incorporation/Nationality only if the IPO considers that the Certificate of Incorpora-tion/Nationality is necessary and instructs the applicant to submit such document. But for trademark opposition, invalidation, and revo-cation actions, the current Rules list the Cer-tificate of Incorporation/Nationality among the essential documents that an applicant is required to submit when filing an application. The requirement to submit the Certificate of Incorporation/Nationality when filing a patent opposition or cancellation application was removed from the Patent Act Enforcement Rules in 2002, and internationally, trademark opposition applicants are not generally re-quired to submit the Certificate of Incorpora-tion/Nationality. In view of this, and in the interests of consistency between trademark and patent legislation, and of relaxing legisla-tive requirements and simplifying procedures, the IPO plans to amend the Rules so that ap-plicants in trademark dispute cases will not be required to submit the Certificate of Incorpo-ration/Nationality unless instructed to do so by the IPO when the IPO considers it is neces-sary.
．Class headings for goods and services to be amended in line with Nice Classification 9th edition
Taiwan is not a party to the Nice Agreement. However, in view of the fact that most coun-tries base their classification of goods and services for trademark applications on the Nice Classification, the classes of goods and services used in Taiwan have been based on the Nice Classification since 1994. The ninth edition of the Nice Classification took effect at the beginning of 2007. In keeping with the principle of using the international classifica-tion in Taiwan, the class headings in the list of goods and services will be amended accord-ingly.
The amendments are currently subject to the procedures for advance notice of legislation, and may take effect some time after mid-July 2007.