1、To improve the efficiency of the re-examination process, TIPO will launch “Accelerated Examination Program for Re-examination (AEPRe)” on September 1, 2024.  For cases where the final rejection decision on substantive examination only reject some claims and there is at least one claim that not rejected, the re-examination process of the re-examination invention case can be accelerated through AEPRe.  This program aims to improve the efficiency of the re-examination process and encourage applicants to amend their claims based on the “not rejected claim” provided in the final rejection decision on substantive examination.

2、Re-examination invention case that meet the following requirements are eligible for AEPRe and the applicants can receive re-examination results within six months after applying AEPRe:
(1) Eligible AEPRe Case：re-examination invention cases where the final rejection decision on substantive examination only reject some claims.

2. Eligible AEPRe Request Timing：Within the period from “notified by TIPO that the invention application will soon be undergoing Reexamination” to “received first Reexamination OA.”

3. Eligible AEPRe Claim Amendments：Applicants should amend the claims according to Article 49 of the Patent Act and the claim amendments narrow the scope of the claims to be no broader than “the not rejected claim” by the following criteria :

a. Delete claims that have grounds for rejection in the final rejection decision on Substantive Examination.

b. Simply re-write the dependent claims that are not rejected in the final rejection decision on substantive examination to independent claims.

Note：The claim Amendments may make adjustments to claim numbers, dependency relationships, and add new dependent claims to the aforementioned criteria a and b independent claims.

• Publish Date : 2024-09-11
• Update : 2024-09-11
• Organization : International Legal Affairs Office
• Visitors : 520