Closing out the year, Thailand’s Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) has gifted green innovators with a chance to take a faster route for examining their patent and petty patent applications under the “Target Patent Fast-Track” program. This route prioritizes environmentally sustainable inventions, and significantly accelerates the preliminary and substantive examinations of selected applications at no additional official fee. The program was publicly announced on December 2, 2024, in the DIP Notification on the Expansion of Technological Fields under the Target Patent Fast-Track Program, which took effect on December 15, 2024. The expedited process is open to both Thai and foreign applicants, provided the requirements in the notification are met. Under the fast-track program, a first office action for qualifying applications can be expected within 6 months during the preliminary examination stage. These applications will also be issued a first office action within just 12 months in the substantive examination period after publication. The DIP begins accepting formal requests for selection to participate in the program from January 1, 2025, onward. Each applicant can submit only one application per fast-track patent program per month, as selected applications cannot belong to the same applicant. No more than 10 applications per month will be chosen to participate in the fast-track route, with the results being announced on the 5th of every following month. To be eligible for selection, applications must comply with all the fast-track requirements specified in the recent DIP notification, particularly: The patent or petty patent application must have been filed with the DIP for at least three months, or a substantive examination request has already been filed in the case of patent applications. Each application must contain no more than 10 claims throughout its participation in the program. The application must be electronically filed in Thailand first or through

As part of its membership in Lex Mundi, Tilleke & Gibbins has published an updated edition of its Guide to Doing Business in Thailand for 2023. This guide outlines the key factors for starting and operating a business in the Thai market. Issues covered include: Investment incentives Financial facilities Exchange controls Import and export regulations Structures for doing business Requirements for the Establishment of a Business Operation of the Business Cessation or Termination of the Business Labor legislation, relations, and supply Tax Immigration requirements This publication is part of Lex Mundi’s Country Guides series prepared by member firms in more than 100 jurisdictions worldwide. The guides serve as a useful resource for planning international business strategy and researching new markets. The full Guide to Doing Business in Thailand is available through the button below.

Patent prosecution can be a lengthy process, especially in jurisdictions where patent office backlogs impede the timely examination and grant of patents. Acknowledging the imperative for expeditious patent prosecution, numerous patent holders in Southeast Asian (SEA) nations have expressed their eagerness to expedite the process. Consequently, governments in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam have instituted diverse programs to facilitate swifter patent examination and grant. These programs are implemented either within their own intellectual property systems or through collaboration with other intellectual property offices. Notably, many accelerated examination programs are also available for inventions pertaining to green technologies or matters of public interest. In this article, we will explore a selection of these options, shedding light on the programs that facilitate faster patent examination and grant. While the following sections highlight specific initiatives, it is important to note that there may be other programs and opportunities beyond those mentioned here.   ASEAN Patent Examination Cooperation (ASPEC) Program One of the most notable programs in the region, the ASPEC program offers a mechanism for patent applicants to accelerate the examination of their patent applications in a participating IP office of an ASEAN member state (the second IP office) by leveraging the search and examination reports issued by the participating IP office of another ASEAN member state (the first IP office) on the corresponding application. Patent applications filed in any of the participating ASEAN member states, including Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, are eligible to benefit from the ASPEC program. An ASPEC request can be filed at any time before the final decision of grant or refusal; however, to maximize the effectiveness of the program, it is advisable to file the ASPEC request concurrently with the substantive examination request—by doing so, the substantive