“Guidelines for Handling Patent Applications Involving Traditional Intellectual Creations of Indigenous Peoples” enacted for indigenous peoples’ intellectual creations protection

　According to Taiwan IPO, as the indigenous peoples of Taiwan have their specific intellectual creations of traditional religious ceremonies, music, dance, songs, sculptures, weaving, patterns, clothing, folk crafts or any other expression of the cultural achievements, the “Guidelines for Handling Patent Applications Involving Traditional Intellectual Creations of Indigenous Peoples” is specifically enacted to serve as examination reference of Taiwan IPO’s examiners when any proposed patent application involves indigenous peoples’ traditional intellectual creations so as to avoid overlooking the existing and published prior art during the process of examination, facilitate the consensus of points of views and also to demonstrate respect for indigenous peoples’ traditional cultures and protect their intellectual creations.

　Examiners should use all kinds of retrieval tools to search the existence of prior art as possible as they can during examination process.  In addition, they may seek assistance from the Council of Indigenous Peoples as a source of retrieval information for the ultimate purpose of protection of indigenous peoples’ intellectual creations.  The above-mentioned “Guidelines for Handling Patent Applications Involving Traditional Intellectual Creations of Indigenous Peoples” has come into force since June 26, 2017.  (June 2017)
/CCS