Following the programs on TIPO-JPO PPH in 2012 and TIPO-JPO PDX in 2013, the Association of East Asian Relations and Interchange Association Japan on November 20, 2014, signed a memorandum for a cooperative program on mutual recognition of deposit of biological materials between Taiwan and Japan. Through cooperation between TIPO and JPO, this mutual recognition aims to lessen the burden on the part of patent applicants having to repeatedly make deposits in respective countries.

Taiwan and Japan have had a long history of close economic and trading relation. Japan outnumbers other countries in biological deposits made in Taiwan for patent applications. Over the past 20 years, that number has reached 600 cases, second only to those made by Taiwan nationals. Once the program is in place, the biological materials of a patent application filed with TIPO that have been deposited in a designated international depository in Japan may be furnished upon request by any party. As such, Taiwan is the first country not party to the Budapest Treaty with which Japan has signed a memorandum for the purpose of mutual recognition of deposits of biological materials.

Under this program, applicants are allowed to make only one deposit at a designated depository either in Taiwan or in Japan. In other words, applicants are no longer burdened with the inconvenience and cost of having to make a deposit in both countries. As a result, the program can significantly benefit domestic industries and academic institutes of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and food sciences, such as the GenMont Biotech Inc., Bio-Ray Biotech Co., Ltd., and Academia Sinica. By the same token, this program meets the expectation of relevant sectors in Taiwan with the country’s food science institutes now being recognized as equally eligible depositories capable of furthering cooperation with depositories in Japan.