Taiwan and Israel yesterday signed two memorandums of understanding (MOUs) to strengthen cooperation on intellectual property and speed up patent reviews during a bilateral economic and technological discussion held via videoconference.
The agreements aim to streamline patent examination procedures and enhance intellectual property protection between the two sides, the International Trade Administration under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said in a news release.
According to the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO), the patent prosecution highway (PPH) agreement with Israel will allow an applicant to request accelerated examination of a patent application in one country after a corresponding application has been approved in the other.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office
The program will take effect on Jan. 2 next year, TIPO said, adding that Israel is the eighth country — after the US, Japan, Spain, South Korea, Poland, Canada and France — to establish such a framework with Taiwan.
TIPO said Taiwan and Israel also signed a separate MOU on intellectual property cooperation, which focuses on information sharing, professional exchanges, and efforts to raise public awareness of intellectual property.
The MOUs were signed remotely by Taiwan's Representative to Israel Abby Lee (李雅萍) and Israeli Representative to Taiwan Maya Yaron.
During the event, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Cynthia Kiang (江文若) said countries worldwide are reassessing how to build secure, resilient and comprehensive supply chains amid fast-changing global economic and trade conditions.
Kiang noted that Israel has a high concentration of start-ups and attracts multinational companies to establish R&D centers, while Taiwan is home to some of the world's most advanced manufacturing technologies. Their complementary strengths could help deepen supply chain cooperation in emerging technology sectors, she said.
Israel is Taiwan's 28th-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade between the two countries reaching US$2.72 billion in the first 10 months of this year, up 38 percent from the same period last year, MOEA data showed.
JITTERS: Nexperia has a 20 percent market share for chips powering simpler features such as window controls, and changing supply chains could take years European carmakers are looking into ways to scratch components made with parts from China, spooked by deepening geopolitical spats playing out through chipmaker Nexperia BV and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths. To protect operations from trade ructions, several automakers are pushing major suppliers to find permanent alternatives to Chinese semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The industry is considering broader changes to its supply chain to adapt to shifting geopolitics, Europe’s main suppliers lobby CLEPA head Matthias Zink said. “We had some indications already — questions like: ‘How can you supply me without this dependency on China?’” Zink, who also
At least US$50 million for the freedom of an Emirati sheikh: That is the king’s ransom paid two weeks ago to militants linked to al-Qaeda who are pushing to topple the Malian government and impose Islamic law. Alongside a crippling fuel blockade, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has made kidnapping wealthy foreigners for a ransom a pillar of its strategy of “economic jihad.” Its goal: Oust the junta, which has struggled to contain Mali’s decade-long insurgency since taking power following back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, by scaring away investors and paralyzing the west African country’s economy.
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,