1. Obtaining a patent among Korea-China-Japan becomes easy
- The construction of the patent prosecution highway among Korea-China-Japan was completed, and the declaration of cooperation in intellectual property rights among Korea-China-Japan has been accepted.
The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) held the 23rd commissioner’s meeting between KIPO and the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) and the 11th commissioner’s meeting among KIPO, the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China (SIPO) and JPO during the two days, December 15 and 16, 2011 in Gyungju.
In the 23rd commissioner’s meeting between KIPO and JPO, Mr. Soo-Won LEE, the commissioner of KIPO, and Mr. Yoshiyuki IWAI, the commissioner of JPO, agreed to operate the PCT patent prosecution highway (PCT-PPH) between the Republic of Korea and Japan. They will conclude a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the operation of the PCT-PPH system during the first half of 2012, at the earliest, and they will simultaneously carry forward the immediate operation of the PCT-PPH system.
Since the PCT-PPH system between KIPO and USPTO began operation from July, 2011, KIPO has now agreed to operate such a system with SIPO and JPO in 2012, so that the interactive PCT-PPH system among three countries, Korea-China-Japan, will be constructed.
In the meeting, Mr. LEE, Mr. Lipu TIAN (the commissioner of SIPO) and Mr. IWAI constructed the new patent cooperative roadmap and accepted the declaration of cooperation in intellectual property rights among Korea-China-Japan.
In the ‘declaration of cooperation in intellectual property rights among Korea-China-Japan’ as adopted for the first time, the plans for cooperation among the three countries regarding the overall intellectual property rights were presented. The declaration also included the joint use of patent examination results, the protection of intellectual property rights, the education of human resources, etc. as its major contents.
2. A request for patent registration becomes fast and easy
In the future, when an erroneously written request for patent registration is submitted or when a document to be attached for patent registration is omitted, if such a mistake is made up within one (1) month, the patent can be registered without submitting the request again.
According to KIPO, from July 1, 2012, when a name, address, etc. is wrongly written in the request for patent registration or when a part of the documents to be attached is omitted, the patent can be registered if such a problem is solved within one (1) month. Also, from January 1, 2012, even though a requester inaccurately describes an address, if the requester is identified, a person in charge of the case in KIPO may directly correct the address and register the patent.
At present, in the aforementioned cases, the request is not accepted and therefore the requester experiences the inconvenience having to again submit a request for patent registration. Furthermore, since the patent right is registered on the date of re-submitting the request rather than the date of first submitting the request, the registration is delayed. Accordingly, it is expected that these improvements will make it easier in requesting patent registration.
3. KIPO’s seminar to promote the use of research notes was a great success
- A place to share the paper/electronic research note information was open
KIPO announced that the research note seminar held in the COEX, Samsung-dong for the researchers in universities, public institutes and R&D agencies had been a great success.
This seminar was held to promote the use of research notes and to improve the understanding of researchers. In this seminar, about 200 people related to industry-university-institute including about 60 universities and public institutes, about 100 companies, etc. attended with the research note’s legal effect(s) and specific case(s) of using a research note were presented.
“Although the importance of a research note has been magnified by making it compulsory to establish guidelines for a research note of a research institute to perform a national R&D project, there is no place to share research note information. Therefore, I expect this event to be a foundation on which a domestic culture of making a research note is settled and practiced” said the speaker, Prof. Wong-yong LEE (Yonsei University) of the Research Ethics Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
4. It is easy for a designer to file an application for a 3D design
As the 3D program is generalized in the design industry, for the first time in the world, KIPO has introduced and operated an application filing system using the 3D modeling since 2010, so that a designer and an applicant may easily protect designs.
According to KIPO, the number of applications for design registration through the 3D modeling was 1,386 as of October 2011, showing a 93% increase in comparison with the same period of 2010. The percentage of the design applications through the 3D modeling to the total design applications increased from 1.4% in 2010 to 3.1% in 2011.
Based on the statistical analysis, 88% of the design applications through the 3D modeling were directly filed without any agent. This is considered as being due to the merit that a design application can be directly filed without additionally processing the 3D modeling data actually used in a design developing process.
In addition, the rate of deciding the registration of a design application submitted through the 3D modeling reached 93%, which is higher than that of a design application submitted through a 2D drawing. Since the whole design shape is expressed in a single file, it is possible to avoid any inconsistency in the drawing which may occur when a design application is filed by re-making a number of 2D drawings after a relevant product is developed.
|
