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Plans to prevent the leak of a trade secret, the key of a business survival(News Letter No. 472) |
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KH |
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2022-01-17 |
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7443 |
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1. Plans to prevent the leak of a trade secret, the key of a business survival
- KIPO published a ‘1st master plan for unfair competition prevention and trade secret protection (2022~2026)’.
▶ Preemptive protection support is to be strengthened with respect to a core technology which is important to the national economy and security and the company holding the core technology.
▶ Brain drain to overseas is to be prevented by hiring a patent examination of a retired workforce in the core technology field.
▶ Protection support of trade secrets of universities and public research institutes is to be strengthened to solve a technology leak blind spot.
KIPO published the ‘1st master plan for unfair competition prevention and trade secret protection (2022~2026)’, to prevent a trade secret from leaking and to establish a fair competition order.
Since the competitions among companies have been intensified, the cases have continued scouting key personnel and leaking trade secrets by cyber hacking, industrial espionage, etc. at home and abroad. As the advanced technology, such as AI, semiconductors, etc., have been utilized as dual use technology, the relevant companies’ technology and management trade secrets have been leaked overseas, threatening the national economy and security.
In addition, since economic activities have been on-lined due to the acceleration of a digital transformation and the appearance of a metaverse, the type of unfair competition acts have been diversified and therefore it is urgent to prepare the responsive measures thereto.
[Major content of the master plan for trade secret protection]
Protection support is to be proactively strengthened as for a core technology which is critical for the national economy and security and the company owning the technology.
Further, a trade secret is to be prevented from leaking due to an overseas job of a core manpower by hiring a retired technique manpower, which had worked in core technology research, as a patent examiner.
Along with this, the requirements for proving that a trade secret has been leaked abroad are to be eased and the overseas leaking thereof is to be blocked by newly establishing regulations of an industrial spy and by preparing a special case for the statute of limitations, etc.
The scope of investigation of the KIPO’s technical police is to be expanded to the overall technology leak, such as an unauthorized leak of a trade secret and the illegitimate possession thereof, and the investigation capacity is to be expanded by reinforcing the professional manpower, such as the personnel to restore digital data.
The system of collecting evidence is to be improved and a victim’s burden of proof is to be eased to early settle a trade secret dispute, and the system to reinforce the professionalism of a trial will be improved through the concentration of jurisdiction of civil and criminal litigation regarding a trade secret.
The fine is to be increased as to an organized leaking act of a corporation, and the recovery of unfair profits due to an infringement to a trade secret is to be carried forward by introducing a confiscation system.
As for universities which relatively lack protection measures in comparison to companies, a trade secret management system is to be built and a trade secret protection expert is to be dispatched.
Further, methodology training and strategy establishment are to be supported such that R&D outputs of a company and a university are to be strategically protected by using a patent and a trade secret.
[Major content of the master plan for unfair competition prevention]
Acts of unfair competition are to be re-classified by types, and the law system is also to be organized to be flexibly applied to a new type of an unfair competition act.
Further, a type of an unfair competition act of talking down a competitive company in the digital environments, such as a metaverse, NFT (non-fungible token), etc., is to be studied, to improve the system.
An administrative investigation guideline regarding data and a right of publicity which was newly added in November 2021 is to be prepared, and an act of neutralizing data protection measures is to be included in the scope of investigation by the technical police.
To secure the effectiveness of an administrative investigation of an unfair competition act, a corrective order is to be introduced, and the imposition of fines is to be introduced in case of non-compliance of the order.
A propulsion group consisting of about 30 civilian committee members in the industry, academia and legal profession started in April 2021, deriving the policy tasks based on 13 rounds of discussion and the results of research on actual conditions.
From 2022, detailed plans to put the 1st master plan into action will be established every year, to be implemented.
2. Development of AI technology is suggested through a patent analysis.
- KIPO held a seminar of patents and industrial trends in the AI field.
Topics:
❶ Patent trends in the field of data augmentation using the deepfake generation technology
❷ AI and quantum computing convergence technology trends
❸ Medical bigdata analysis using AI
❹ Korean hyper scale AI model development and ecosystem development trends
This seminar was arranged to share the results of analyzing the AI-field major technology, which is a core technology of the 4th industry, and the patent trends thereof and to review the future technology development directions.
About 200 experts in the AI-related industry, academia and research institutes online and offline attended this seminar, to diagnose patent and industrial competitiveness in the AI field and to discuss the future research and technology development directions.
This seminar progressed in a total of two (2) sessions on the ‘patent trends in the AI field’, which was directedly analyzed by a KIPO examiner, and the ‘AI industrial trends’, which was analyzed in the private sector.
In the first session, an AI patent study group under KIPO gave a presentation on ❶ the data augmentation using the deepfake technology, to dramatically solve a problem of lacking data to influence the AI performance, and ❷ the recent patent trends of the convergence of AI and quantum computing.
Regarding the data augmentation using the deepfake technology, the results of analyzing the trends of recently increasing patent applications and the major applicants were shared.
The quantum computing technology which has been raised as an important technology in the technological hegemonic competition was introduced. Specifically, the possibility that quantum computing will be another big driving force of AI development was reviewed through the patent trend analysis of “quantum neural network” and “quantum machine learning”.
The second session introduced cases where an industry has applied AI to the data analysis industry, the Korean hyper scale AI model, and the ecosystem construction.
Jinho SHON, head of the research institute of MISO INFO TECH, presented cases where the AI technology was applied to the analysis of large data, specifically, medical bigdata, together with the patent strategies, offering an opportunity to listen to small and medium companies’ experience of using AI.
Jungwoo HA, head of the research institute of NAVER Corp., introduced the present and future of the Korean hyper scale AI model development and gave a presentation on the support directions to build an ecosystem through a super-giant AI platform to introduce a win-win plan with small and medium companies through the platform ecosystem.
Eulsoo SEO, director of the Convergence Technology Examination Bureau of KIPO, emphasized that the AI technology is one of the data (D), network (N) and artificial intelligence (A) to lead the 4th industrial revolution, and, above all, it is important to develop a core technology and to preoccupy an excellent patent to secure the future national growth engine.
He also said that the patent analysis of the major technology in the AI field would be helpful to Korean companies in establishing the research and development directions and the investment strategies, to be of help in developing the AI industry.
3. KIPO held a public hearing on an amendment to the Korean Patent Act related to a medical method invention.
- An opportunity for a public debate was prepared to discuss the direction to protect a medical method invention.
Topics:
① Presentation of the major content of the amendment to the Patent Act relating to a medical method invention
② Engineers’ presentation in each of the academia, law, medical, industry, research worlds
KIPO held a public hearing of an amendment to the Patent Act related to a medical method invention in the Korea Institute of Intellectual Property in Seoul.
As the number of patent applications relating to a medical method including surgery, treatment or diagnosis, has increased, this public hearing was arranged to collect opinions from each professional world regarding a plan to specify, in the Patent Act, the basis to protect a medical method invention.
The experts in industry, academia, legal and medical worlds online and/or offline attended the public hearing to listen to the experts of each world and the participants’ opinions with respect to the amendment direction of the Patent Act, which has been reviewed in KIPO.
Under the current Korean patent practice, a medical method invention is considered as an industrially inapplicable invention and therefore it is not allowed as being patentable.
However, since the 4th industrial revolution digital technology and the medical technology have been converged, the number of patent applications related to a medical method invention, such as a diagnosis method using AI, etc., has rapidly increased.
As many countries including US and Europe among others have expanded the patentable subject to the biotechnological new technology including a diagnostic medical treatment, South Korea also needs to positively review the measure to protect a medical method invention as a patent.
4. The patent cooperation between South Korea-Europe has started to prepare international examination standards of an AI invention.
A video conference between KIPO (Commissioner: Yongrae KIM) and EPO (President: Antonio Campinos) was held.
In this conference, both agreed to publish, to the public, a report of comparing and clearing up the examination standards and cases of KIPO and EPO regarding an invention using a computer or software (hereinafter, referred to as “CII”: computer implemented invention), such as AI, business method, on December 8, 2021.
The report to be published includes the examination standards regarding the CII and the cases of specifically applying the examination standards. Therefore, when an applicant refers to this report, it is expected that the applicant is able to more effectively respond to problems which may occur in preparing an application document to be filed and responding to an examination process.
Since the report also arranges systematically the commonality and differences in the examination standards relating to CII between KIPO and EPO, it is considered to be used as an informative reference material when discussing the future internationally unified examination standards thereof.
In this conference, the commissions of KIPO and EPO signed a plan to carry forward patent cooperation with the content of key cooperation items for the next 2 years.
As the plan reflects various matters, such as △ joint-research on the description requirements of an application relating to an AI invention, △ training cooperation for the empowerment of an examiner, △ discussion of a plan to use AI to improve the efficiency of patent administration, etc., tight cooperation between KIPO and EPO is expected to continued.
Yongrae KIM, the commissioner of KIPO, said, “in the situation that the number of patent applications relating to CII such as AI, etc., has increased, the international cooperation to prepare the international examination standards has a important significance of enhancing the convenience of an applicant.”
He also added that he would positively attend an international discussion on the examination standards regarding CII, such as AI, by gradually expanding the exchanges with the intellectual property offices of the major countries, starting the cooperation with EPO.
5. An advanced manipulation technology (deepfake) has rapidly risen as a new factor of change in the field of AI learning data.
- The number of patent applications related to the advanced manipulation technology-based AI learning has increased by an annual average of 135% or more
As a result of KIPO’s analysis of the Korean, US and European patent applications, as the importance of learning data has increased, the number of patent applications relating to AI data generation has continued to increase around the world. Among those applications, the number of the applications in the ‘deepfake-based data augmentation’ field, which were filed for the last 5 years, increased from 37 in 2015 to 1,124 in 2018, showing an annual growth rate as much as 135% which were statistically far beyond the number of the applications of previous technologies.
By the nationality of the applicant, US applicants including Google ranked first with 44%, but there is not much difference between Korean applicants ranking third with 14.5% and Chinese applicants raking second with 18%, showing that Korean companies appear to be active in developing the technology in this field.
Specially, as the number of patent applications filed by the Korean companies including StradVision, etc. has rapidly increased since 2017, the valid patents of Korean applicants are considered as increasing the technology competitiveness of Korean companies passing Japan and China in 2018.
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