The Taiwan [Chinese Taipei - Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu] revised Patent Law took effect for patent documents published from 1 August 2004 onwards. As a result, the numbering format for TW examined patent documents has also changed.

The new number format consists of 7 digits: TW-XNNNNNN where the letter “X” indicates the patent document type.

- I for Invention patent e.g. I220001
- M for Utility Model e.g. M240001
- D for Design patent e.g. D100001

This is followed by a 6-digit serial number, with the new serial number range starting at 220001 as of the publication date 01/08/2004.

The first of these new publications are scheduled to appear in DWPI First View and DWPI in early March 2005.

The following number standards will be used for the New Law documents in DWPI to avoid creating duplicates with the existing TW patent number series in DWPI.

TW Examined Patents	Derwent Kind Code		Derwent patent number format	Derwent application number format
Old Law	A		TW-NNNNNN-A	YYYYTW-nnnnnn
New Law	B1		TW-NNNNNN-B1	YYYYTW-nnnnnn

Example:	Old Law Gazette Entry	592636
	DWPI Patent Number DWPI Application Number	TW592936A 2003TW118606

Example:	New Law Gazette Entry	I220010
	DWPI Patent Number DWPI Application Number	TW220010B1 2003TW101562

Please note that we are currently investigating the feasibility of retrospectively converting the kind code of the Old Law TW patents in DWPI from “A” to “B” for greater consistency of searching across Old and New Law TW examined data. Customers will be notified in advance should this change take place.