Taiwan-France PPH program starts as of July 1, 2025

　At the 2025 Taiwan-France Economic Dialogue held on May 21, 2025, the Director General of TIPO, LIAO Cheng-Wei and the Director General of the National Institute of the Industrial Property (INPI, France), Pascal Faure, signed a statement of intent on the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) between TIPO and INPI, with the signing process witnessed by HAO Pei-Chih, Taiwan’s representative to France and Franck Paris, the director of the French Office in Taipei.  The Taiwan-France PPH has officially taken effect as of July 1, 2025, marking a major milestone of Taiwan-France collaboration in the IP field.  

　The PPH program is a mechanism that expedites both offices’ patent examination process by sharing examination results and search reports, thus reducing duplicative work of examination and further enhancing examination efficiency and quality.  The Taiwan-France PPH will assist enterprises in securing patents quickly and streamlining their global patent strategies.  

　Since establishing its first PPH program with the USPTO in 2011, the TIPO has successively entered into PPH agreements with Japan, Spain, South Korea, Poland, and Canada.  France is Taiwan’s 7^th partner of PPH collaboration, and Taiwan’s global PPH network has been expanded accordingly.  According to the TIPO’s statistics, the average pendency for a first office action under PPH program is 4.4 months, which is much shorter than and represents a significant improvement to the 14.15 months required by regular examination process.

　Director General Liao stated that with the bilateral trading amount of USD6.538 billion, France is Taiwan’s 18^th largest trading partner in 2024, the 3^rd largest trading partner in the European Union, and also a vital economic and trade partner for Taiwan in Europe.  The Taiwan-France PPH collaboration establishes a friendlier transnational patent application environment, in which enterprises may secure patents more promptly to win market advantages.  In the future, the TIPO and the INPI will continue to strengthen their cooperation and work together to ensure a robust IP protection environment that meets the needs of enterprises of both countries and supports industrial development.  (Released 2025.05.21)  
/CCS