1. IP5 countries agreed with the unification of valuation bases…Cost for filing a patent application in a foreign country looks to be greatly reduced
The major five (5) advanced intellectual property (IP5) countries will unify IP valuation bases. The burden in company predictability and cost will be greatly reduced by decreasing the number of cases that the registrations of foreign IP applications are rejected.
According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the IP5 countries agreed to carry forward the ‘IP harmonization’ in a working-level meeting held last month.
IP5 is a group of the Patent Offices of the five (5) major countries holding about 90% of the world IP applications. This includes the Patent Offices of the Republic of Korea, US, Europe, China and Japan.
The IP unification will be achieved by a step by step process which will take some time. The roadmap will be decided in the Commissioner’s meeting of the Patent Offices of the IP5 in June, 2013.
Building a ‘global IP examination information system’ will be carried forward. This system will be available as early as possible, perhaps in 2015. This system enables to monitor the processes of filing and handling IP applications by the five (5) countries.
The relevant industry considers that the unification of the IP valuation bases will greatly reduce the cost of filing an application by an inventor (company). For example, it will be possible to reduce the number of notices of request for submission of an argument (and/or a notice of decision of rejection), which is issued basically once or twice in US, or to eliminate such notices. The cost burden for filing an application and for registering a patent (about 10,000.00 US dollars) will be reduced by about half.
2. A manufacturer producing fakes of famous brand-name accessories reaching about 83 billion Korea Won has been prosecuted
- One manufacturer producing fakes of Chanel products has been arrested and the manufacturer produced and sold about a total of 130,000 products for six (6) years
The arrested manufacturer produced about 130,000 ‘fake’ jewelries for accessory by illegally using the famous brand-names, such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton, etc. and distributed to wholesale and retail sale dealers in Namdaemun Market.
The special police squad for trademarks (SPST) under KIPO announced that it requested an arrest warrant for a person surnamed KIM (age: 49 years old) on a charge of violating the Trademark Law, who manufactured and distributed the fake accessory jewelries including fake rings and necklaces, etc., illegally using the foreign famous trademarks of Chanel, Louis Vuitton, etc.
SPST arrested a person surnamed WON, a manufacturer of ‘fake’ accessory jewelries, in November, 2012. After that, SPST expanded the investigation to perform an intensive tracking investigation of wholesale and retail sale dealers, manufacturers, etc. in Namdaemun and Dongdaemun. As a result, SPST was able to arrest the manufacturers and distributors of such fake products which totaled about 83 billion Korea Won.
On December 9, 2012, SPST confiscated about 7,000 ‘fake’ accessory jewelries of Chanel, Louis Vuitton, etc. (corresponding to 3.9 billion Korea Won of the value of original products), which were kept in a manufacturing factory located in Jung-gu, Seoul.
3. Customized strategies for creating standard patents for small and medium-sized companies will be supported
- KIPO held a presentation of a project for supporting the creation of standard patents in 2013
KIPO announced that starting this year, it would perform a ‘project for supporting the strategies for creating standard patents’ focused on the strengthening of standard patent competition of small and medium-sized companies.
For the creation of standard patents, not only R&D (research and development) and filing of patent applications but also standardization activities are essentially required.
In cooperation with Korean technology associations or standardization forums, etc., KIPO will support small and medium-sized companies that produce (or develop) products using main standard technologies to create patents absolutely needed in realizing standard technologies.
KIPO will also provide results of analyzing the standard patent information involved with a product through the technology associations and forums so that the companies may use them, thereby strengthening the standard patent competition of the small and medium-sized companies.
According to KIPO, when small and medium-sized companies participate in governmental and private R&D tasks aiming for standardization, KIPO will first of all support these companies so that the relevant company may secure a standard patent.
4. KIPO positively supports the commercialization of patent technology
KIPO’s effort to help a medium/small company’s patent so as to be used and commercialized has obtained visible results. KIPO has supported the ‘IP utilization strategies for medium/small companies’, ‘evaluation of patent technologies’, etc. to activate the use of patents, by recognizing the fact that medium/small companies’ patents are valuable and therefore these are a source to create added values in order for the Republic of Korea to take a leap as an IP powerful country.
This is to help medium/small companies which have excellent patents being able to be approved in the global market but cannot successively commercialize them since they lack the capability, such as market survey, establishment of commercialization strategies, lack of funds, etc.
In a project to support the ‘IP utilization strategies for medium/small companies’, KIPO supports the market survey, analysis of competitor(s), product design, etc. and presents executive strategies for commercialization thereof, based on the patent analysis, so that medium/small companies can produce products to be distributed in markets by using their patents. This project which was started from 2012 has received a good evaluation that it efficiently solves a field thirsty in patent commercialization.
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