Patent Amendments ©(Part II of II)

Taiwan IP Updates ĄV November 2025

By Lyndon

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Taiwan Announces Extension of the Accelerated Examination Program for Reexamination Applications (AEP-Re)

The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) first implemented the AEP-Re program on September 1, 2024. Now, after one year, TIPO has announced its willingness to continue the program on a trial basis. In the first year since its inauguration, the program has received a total of 45 requests and 38 examination results have been issued. The average period from filing an AEP-Re request and receiving an examination result was 22.8 days, which is much shorter than the average reexamination time of 10 to 13 months. The feedback from the applicants about the AEP-Re program has been very positive, not just because of the speed, but also due to the simple application procedure and the absence of any fee. To be eligible for the AEP-Re program, an application must have already received the first Office Action rejecting part of the claims while allowing the rest. If the applicant is willing to amend the claims at the reexamination stage to conform to the scope of claims allowed at the first examination stage, the reexamination case may be eligible for accelerated examination under the AEP-Re program. It should be noted that there is also the Accelerated Examination Program (AEP) which covers both the initial examination stage and the reexamination stage in accelerated form.

Nvidia and TSMC Patent Applications Set to Rise in Taiwan

With the establishment of Nvidia’s branch office in Taiwan and TSMC’s expansion efforts, the IP sector in Taiwan sees plenty of upsides this year. Partly, this is due to recent developments in the US. At the end of October, Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer and his counterparts in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. The recent construction of TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona is part of a process whereby the US can secure manufacture of advanced chips on its soil and TSMC can continue its globalization process while maintaining its production ecosystem and R&D in Taiwan. The debut of the first US-made Blackwell chip means the AI technology stack now has a manufacturing base in the US, and it is hoped that this will keep the country’s global leadership in the AI field. For TSMC, globalization is also necessary as land, water and trained staff are all in high demand and hitting the upper limits of supply. TSMC is investing US 65 billion dollars in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs with the first one opened in 2024, using the 4 nanometer process. Recently, TSMC pledged to invest an additional US 100 billion dollars in Arizona to build three more wafer fabs, two IC assembly plants, and one R&D center. Jensen Huang stated that this is a historic moment for several reasons. It’s the very first time in recent American history that the single most important chip is being manufactured in the US by the most advanced fab, TSMC. Undoubtedly, this partnership between Nvidia and TSMC will lead to further advances in technology and patent activity in the US and Taiwan. In the future, TSMC in Arizona will produce chips using advanced 2nm, 3nm, 4nm, and A16 processes, and these technologies are critical to emerging technologies, including AI applications, telecommunications, and high-performance computing devices.

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