The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office has adopted a procedural measure known as Accelerated Examination Procedure (AEP). According to said procedure, an applicant may file a request for accelerated examination under one of the following conditions, with submission of relevant documents:
(1) If a notice of allowance has been issued on a counterpart application or if the counterpart application has matured into a patent.
--a copy of the notice of allowance or the letters patent must be lodged together with copies of the examination report (or Office Action) and search report (if available).
(2) If a first substantive examination report and a search report have been received in any one of the EP, JP and US counterparts but a notice of allowance has yet to be received.
--copies of the examination report (or Office Action) and search report (if available), must be lodged.
(3) If the applicant is planning to commercially practice the invention concerned, e.g., licensing it to others.
Generally, the examination results would be available within 9 months after filing of the request and the relevant documents. If it is intended to take advantage of this procedure based on condition (1) or (2), it is advisable to amend the claims to be commensurate in scope with those allowed in any foreign counterpart application or those pending in the EP, JP or US counterpart application.