REGULATIONS GOVERNING BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL PATENT DEPOSITS AMENDED

01/01/2004

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The amended Patent Act was promulgated by the President on 6 February 2003. Article 11 of the new Act as well as provisions abolishing crimi-nal liability for patent infringement have already taken effect. The remainder of the amended Act will come into force on 1 July 2004. To comply with the amendment, on 10 December 2003, the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced amendments to the Regulations Governing De-posit of Microorganisms for Patent Applications. The main points of the amendments are as fol-lows:

The term "microorganism" has been changed to "biological material". Hence the regula-tions are renamed Regulations Governing the Deposit of Biological Material Related to Patent Applications, and the same terminol-ogy used in them is also amended accordingly.

In line with the abolition of opposition pro-cedures, references to the allowance and pub-lication of patent applications are also amended.

The amended regulations will simultaneously take effect when the amended Patent Act takes effect.