Oral hearings for patent cancellation actions in Taiwan

To allow the parties to fully argue the issues before examiners, and help examiners determine the facts, an oral hearing for a patent cancellation action is needed. As such, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) published the Guidelines for Oral Hearings for Cancellation Actions on 1 March 2018, and will hold their first oral hearing on 27 July 2018.

The attendees of an oral hearing include the parties, the examiners, the agents of the parties, and the invited witnesses or experts. The agents can be patent attorneys, patent agents or attorneys-at-law. Where a party is a company, the said party may send its employees to attend the oral hearing. The attendance of interested parties and the general public should be based on specific requests, and on permission from the IPO.

A cancellation hearing should be heard by a panel of three or more examiners. One of the examiners acts as the presiding examiner, and without the presiding examiner’s permission, no photos or videos are allowed during the oral hearing. A party may only ask the opposing party questions if the presiding examiner has given permission to do so.

MICHAEL SUN is a counselor at the patent department of Lee and Li Attorneys-at-Law