Acceptability of electronic signatures for patent filing purposes

 

1. Taiwan IPO by now remains negative in accepting electronic signatures.  

2. As such, in practice, there has been no known case and we have never been instructed by clients to prosecute any case involving disputes over the ownership of the patent or patent application where electronic signatures arise as an issue.

3. Special expedient handling: It has been suggested that the inventor, the applicant may imprint by copy-and-paste the patent application/assignment documents with their signatures as long as the copy-and-paste print is not so conspicuously unacceptable that Taiwan IP must reject the documents. (For example, the background color of the signature is visibly inconsistent with that of the documents).  It is not known, however, if said expedient handling is being acceptable only on a contingency basis in light of the Covid-19 outbreak worldwide; and there is no guaranty Taiwan IPO will accept electronic signatures as described above after the outbreak.