Floppy Disk Duplicate Filing System
The Floppy Disk (FD) duplicate replaces paper copies of applications and amendments with FD duplicates of documents.This intends to adopt the electronic filing system, aiming to minimize trial and error in comprehensively enforcing the electronic filing system and giving both applicants and attorneys opportunities to adapt themselves to the electronic filing system.
Filing of paper copies are allowed after enforcement of the FD duplicate filing system, but FD duplicate filing will have the benefit of discounted fees as of January 1, 1998. In detail, the fees for a 20 page application will be reduced by 34%, and more reductions as the number of pages increases.


General Power of Attorney System
Patent attorneys can represent clients in current and future proceedings by authority of a non-specific general power of attorney, in contrast to the current power of attorney system in which specific case(s) must be noted on the power of attorney.
Preparation of application documents will be simplified and the on-line filing system will be facilitated.
The general power of attorney system will be implemented together with the enforcement of the electronic filing system. In detail, the system will be effective as of January, 1, 1999, after revision of the Enforcement Regulations of the Korean patent law relating to the power of attorney, in the latter half of 1998.
An applicant/attorney registration system will replace the current system of recording information such as names and addresses thereof on each application, such that application documents will only be required to have intrinsic numbers (codes) of the applicant and patent attorney, respectively.




Solving late Examination and Trial Problem
It used to take approximately 3 or more years receiving the first office action in patent or utility model applications, which is about 1.5 and 2 times the averages of the U.S.A. (19 months) and Japan (24 months), respectively. In an effort to reduce the delay, KIPO has announced their future goals for shortening the examination/trial time (see Table 1).Every inventor is wondering if it can be realized as they promised because of their working system?


Table 1. Time Required to Receive First Office Action (Months)
The KIPO revealed a plan to increase the number of examiners by 207 in 1998, for a total of 602 examiners, in addition to an increase of 142 examiners in 1997. According to the plan, the KIPO is expected to have examination capabilities corresponding to the number of applications (currently 4th in the world), by maintaining an appropriate number of examiners.
Furthermore, the KIPO has announced that the process for trials will be expedited as the Board of Trial and the Board of Appellate Trial in the KIPO will be incorporated into the Tribunal of Trial in the KIPO, so that the trial time is expected to be curtailed to twelve months by 1998. For this purpose, the KIPO has a plan to increase the number of trial examiners from 26 to 37 by 1998.

Struggling for Better and Faster Examination Quality
The KIPO employed eighty one experts including seventy doctorate degree holders, ten certified engineers and one patent attorney as examiners to promote the examining capabilities of advanced technologies. Further, the quality of trials is expected to improve by lowering the number of trial cases being assigned to a trial examiner. Internally, judicial precedents and trial decisions will be entered into a data base, and oral examinations and concentrated examinations will be activated to promote the quality of patent trials.

Biotechnology inventions examined by New Guidelines
The KIPO has been utilizing the biotechnology data bases (GenBank) of the US National Institute of Health and materials from the Institute of Life Science since September 1997 through the Internet, considering that the essence of examination in the field of biotechnology lies in comparison of sequences of DNA or amino acids. The KIPO will establish a data base on biotechnology and develop an examination system of its own in the future. Mutual exchange of data bases, which has been commonly established by the United States of America, Europe and Japan, is expected to be carried out in Korea as well. According to the KIPO's plan, applicants will be obligated to submit an electronic file on the sequence data of DNA and protein, which will be utilized together with the electronic filing system, being effective as of the beginning of 1999.

Applicant notified Expiration date for the Request for Examination
The KIPO has started to notify applicants of the due date to file a request for examination of patent and utility model applications as of late July. Accordingly, it will be easier to avoid applications being considered withdrawn for inadvertently failing to timely file the request for examination before the due date.

Publication by CD-Rom format
The KIPO has announced that the patent, utility model, design, and trademark gazettes currently being published in paperback form will be replaced by CD-ROM titles as of January 1998. Thus, information relating to industrial property can be easily searched using a computer by data fields such as International Patent Classification (IPC), name of applicant, application serial number, or keywords, without searching the entire publications.

Much Increasing of Mediated Settlement of Industrial Property Disputes
Request of mediation by the Mediation Committee for Industrial Property Disputes is rapidly increasing. The Mediation Committee for Industrial Property Disputes established in 1995, as an internal organization of the KIPO, is constituted of 20 members including judges, public prosecutors, attorneys, patent attorneys, industry experts, and public officials at the KIPO.





Detailed View of INcreasing Official Fees
Subsequent to the 20% increase in official fees on September 1, 1997, the KIPO will further increase the official fees by 25% effective as of January 1, 1998 (see Table 2). In this regard, it is advisable to file a request for examination or pay annuities before January 1, 1998, to save on fees.


Table 2. Increase in official fees for 1998
classification before
September
1. 1997 		effective Sep.1.1997 effective Jan.1.1998
amount
(won) 		increase
(won)		 ratio
(%)		 amount
(won)		 increase
(won)		 ratio
(%)
application patent
utility model
design
trade mark		 22,000
15,500
55,000
54,000		 25,000
17,500
61,000
60,000		 3,000
2,000
6,000
6,000		 13.6
12.9
10.9
11.1		 29,000
20,000
66,000
65,000		 7,000
4,500
11,000
11,000		 31.8
29.0
20.0
20.4
request for
examination		 patent(basic fee)
(each additional claim)
utility model		 83,000
19,000
39,000		 109,000
25,000
46,000		 26,000
6,000
7,000		 31.3
31.6
17.9		 141,000
32,000
55,000		 58,000
13,000
16,000		 69.9
68.4
41.1
registration
fee
(1st-3rd
year
annuities)		 patent
(each additional claim)
utility model
design
trade mark		 24,500
14,000
16,500
21,000
176,000		 32,000
18,500
20,000
23,000
192,000		 7,500
4,500
3,500
2,000
16,000		 30.6
32.1
21.2
9.5
9.1		 42,000
24,000
25,000
25,000
211,000		 17,500
10,000
8,500
4,000
35,000		 71.4
71.4
51.5
19.0
19.9
annuity
(4th year)		 patent
(each additional claim)
utility model
design		 42,000
21,000
31,000
29,000		 57,000
28,500
38,000
32,000		 15,000
7,500
7,000
3,000		 35.7
35.7
22.6
10.3		 76,000
37,000
47,000
35,000		 34,000
16,000
16,000
6,000		 81.0
76.2
51.6
20.7





Registration of IC Circuit Layout Designs Rapidly Increased
The registration of the IC is 45 layouts were registered in 1994, 140 layouts in 1995, and 219 layouts in 1996. As such, the number of registrations has increased five times in only two years. In the first half of this year alone, 169 layouts have been registered, which shows a 64.7% increase over the same term of last year.

Computer Programs Reached more than 40 Thousand Registrations in Total
Computer program registrations has reached 41,779 as of August 31, 1997, ten years after starting on September 1, 1987. The four fields, classified by the nature of the programs, that have been registered most, are the science technology field with 12,408 programs being registered (29.7%), the office management field with 7,854 programs (18.8%), the data communications field with 5,681 programs (13.6%), and the utilities field with 4,219 programs. The above four fields comprise more than 72% of the whole.

Domain Name on Internet Expansioned
Korea Network Information Center announced that possible domain names on Internet would be expanded to include registered trademarks (word marks) or titles of works to be assigned to the owner of the trademark or the copyright holder, at some time in the first quarter of next year. Currently, those who want to own domain names can only register names of their organizations, institutes, companies, etc., or acronyms thereof.
Such expansion of possible domain names are expected to increase companies' demand of domain names.
For fair use of domain names, well-known names or names liable to be used for an unjust purpose will not be permitted registration.




Patent Court Launched
The Patent Court has started legal procedures for patent suits, particularly for specialization of the patent court, reasonable management of the Technical Examiner system and adoption of the concentrated pleading system.

For better specialization in the intellectual property field, the Supreme Court set the service period of 3 years for a judge and more than 3 years for a senior judge in the Patent Court. Further, the Supreme Court announced that judges in the Patent Court will be primarily selected from those who have technical backgrounds or experience in the field of intellectual property.

The Korean Court Organization Act stipulates that the Technical Examiner shall be assigned to the Patent Court. A Technical Examiner who participates in a court hearing may ask the litigants question of any technical matters with the permission of the presiding judge, and state his opinion before the judges.
To overcome the limitations of available Technical Examiners and technical fields covered by them, a 'Technical Consultation Group' will be constituted and utilized to cope with highly advanced technologies (such as genetic engineering, aerospace engineering, etc.).

The Supreme Court adopts the concentrated pleading system from the launching step of the Patent Court. Under the concentrated pleading system, overall issues between a plaintiff and a defendant are arranged through preliminary proceedings of pleading, as well as overall evidences being produced altogether by both parties, to accomplish a speedy trial. As a measure for the concentrated pleading, the Supreme Court announced that the preliminary proceedings will be utilized to arrange complicated issues and documentary evidences, and that "technology explanation conferences" by inventors or technical experts will be organized to facilitate understanding of the essence of the technology concerned.




Design Registration with no substantive examination
Details of the articles to be granted design registration with non-substantive examination shall be included:

Electronic and communications products considered at first to be granted design registration with non-substantive examination are not included.

New Guidelines for Similarity of Goods and Services
The International Classification of Goods and Services (the NICE Classification) is adopted concurrently with the enforcement of the revised trademark act, on March 1, 1998. Adoption of the NICE classification is not intended to set the criteria for determining similarity of goods and services, but to simplify application and registration procedures which, otherwise, may be complicated due to differences in the classification of goods and services among countries. The similarity of goods which is an important element in judging the registrability of a trademark is to be determined by independent standards of each country, in view of the trade circumstances of the country.
In this regard, the KIPO also prepared a draft of guidelines for determining similarity of goods and services by collecting opinions from various fields. According to the KIPO's proposed Guidelines, in order to maintain consistency in examination of similarity of goods and services even after adoption of the International Classification of Goods and Services, the KIPO will not make changes in the current criteria for determining the similarity of goods/services categorized by subclasses of the current Korean Classification of Goods and Services. Also, with respect to the goods and services which are not itemized in the present Korean classification, the subclasses to which the goods or services in question belong will be determined considering production fields, sales fields, purposes, consumers and raw materials of the goods, etc., and referring to Japanese and U.S. classifications.

BACK

NEXT NEWS