In Taiwan, a divisional application can be filed any time during the pendency of the parent application. However, unlike other countries where the deadline for filing divisional/continuation applications is before grant or abandonment of the parent application, the window for filing a divisional application in Taiwan is linked to the date of the applicant's receipt of the final office action or notice of allowance and varies with the stage of examination.
Taiwan has a two-stage patent examination system: preliminary examination and reexamination. If an application is rejected in a first office action at the preliminary stage, the applicant may request reexamination by responding to the first office action to have the application examined by another examiner. At each stage, if the examiner intends to reject the application, he will not directly issue an office action to reject the application but will issue at least one official letter to allow the applicant to file observations/amendments.
If an application is allowed at the preliminary stage, any divisional applications can be filed within 30 days of the date of receipt of the notice of allowance. On the other hand, for an application which has entered the reexamination stage, the window for filing a divisional application is closed upon the applicant's receipt of the final office action or notice of allowance.
Since responding to the first office action may result in direct allowance of the application at the reexamination stage, the applicant needs to carefully consider the option of a divisional application when responding to the first office action.
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Chiuling Lin |
Saint Island International Patent & Law Offices
7th Floor, No. 248, Section 3
Nanking East Road
Taipei 105-45, Taiwan, ROC
Tel: +886 2 2775 1823
Fax: +886 2 2731 6377
