一、According to Article 27 of the TRIPS Agreement, patents shall be granted if inventions meet patentability requirements, including utility, novelty and inventive step (or non-obviousness). However, many WTO members, including the USA, Japan and Taiwan, provide the grace period system to grant patents for inventions even if they have been made available to the public before the date of filing of the patent application. Please elaborate the grace period system set forth in Article 22 of the Republic of China Patent Act.（30分）
Tentative Answer (score aim at 70%):
According to Article 22 of the Republic of China Patent Act, a “grace period” of twelve (12) months is prescribed as an exception measure to countervail a lack of novelty and inventive step, the two essential patentabililty requirements. As regulated, a disclosure made by an applicant’s or against her/his will within the grace period before the filing date shall not be deemed as one of the circumstances which would preclude the grant of a patent right. However, a publication in a gazette made in the Republic of China or in a foreign country as the consequence of filing a patent application and made by the applicant’s will, the grace period rule is not applicable.
For example, on May 17, 2021, Tom filed an invention patent appplication resulted from his academic researches which he had presented for the first time ever in a seminar held on December 17, 2020. Since the filing date is less than twelve months, so called the grace period, from the date of the first disclosure to the public, the application shall be accepted in terms of novelty and inventive step requirements, as per Article 22 of the Patent Act.