The Cabinet yesterday approved an amendment to the Patent Act (專利法) to expand the scope of patent rights to include genetically modified plants and animals, bringing the rules in line with the US, Japan, Australia and South Korea.
Wang Mei-hua (王美花), in charge of the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ (MOEA) Intellectual Property Office, said the amendment would offer incentive for research and development in the genetic transformation and cloning fields, in which Taiwan has had significant success.
The expansion would not include developments related to human cloning.
Another change suggests that parts of a new design be patented individually, rather than protecting the design as a whole, including its component parts, shape, appearance, color and other details.
Wang said the rule was revised to address a loophole.
“With the new rule in place, computer-generated icons and graphical user interfaces will all be under the patent umbrella,” Wang said, citing Windows “Recycle Bin” and “My Documents” icons as well as cellphone start-up screens as examples.
The proposal comes after Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics in 2007 accused the Intellectual Property Office of violating the WTO Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights for issuing a compulsory license in 2004 to Gigastorage for five patents related to Philips’ CD-R technology.
The amendment lists the terms and conditions for compulsory licensing and the application process involved to rectify lax regulations in the act.
If passed, an applicant being denied a license by a patent owner despite offering “reasonable” terms, as happened in the Philips case, will not constitute sufficient reason for compulsory licensing.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet approved a proposal calling for an injection of NT$2.1 billion (US$65.3 million) over the next five years to boost the nation’s e-book industry, with the aim of raising its output value to NT$100 billion by 2013.
The Industrial Development Bureau presented the proposal at the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday.
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said in a statement that Taiwan should take advantage of its edge in information and communications to bolster the industry.
“The premier asked the MOEA to help businesses in the industry [so they can] tap into the global e-reader market,” Executive Yuan Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said.
The ministry said in the proposal that the government had a goal of establishing two or three software and hardware platforms for rendering and displaying e-books to compete with Amazon’s Kindle, which offers about 100,000 e-books in Chinese.
Also at the meeting, to mark International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) proposed a report on the protection of the rights of people with disabilities.
More than 1 million people are living with disabilities nationwide, the ministry said.
In a press statement, Wu said the government would make Taiwan a “disability-friendly island” by meeting the needs of the disabled in terms of social welfare, medical treatment, education, employment, living environment and economic security.
The statement said the ministry had drawn up a plan to achieve this over the next 10 years.
Also yesterday, MOEA officials briefed Wu on the water supply in southern Taiwan, which may face water shortages over the next months.
Wu asked Vice Premier Eric Chu (朱立倫) to monitor the situation and tackle the problem.
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