1.The intellectual property (IP) systems changing in 2022
By dividing into three fields of ▲strengthening the IP protection, ▲improving the administration service quality, and ▲strengthening the IP capacity, KIPO introduced the IP system changes in 2022 including the content of providing services of warning and early diagnosing of a dispute risk for a small/medium company, introducing an AI chat-bot capable of an IP consultation service available for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and proceeding with education and consultation regarding a trademark application to prevent an IP damage of a small business.
(1) To thoroughly protect an IP right to prepare the technology hegemony era:
IP dispute response support will be strengthened for a Korean company expanding overseas, by newly providing ❶ a service of warning of a dispute risk provided to a company by deriving a patent in a technical field having a high risk of dispute, and ❷ a service of early diagnosing a dipute risk by monitoring and analyzing a competitor’s patent and technology (March 2022).
An ‘act of unfairly acquired and using the data accumulated and managed for a trading purpose’ and an ‘act of unfairly using a portrait or name, etc. of a famous person’ are newly recognized as unfair competition acts.
Regarding the act of unfairly using data, a civil remedy, an administrative investigation and a recommendation for correction will be available. A criminal punishment will be possible for the act of willfully disabling technical protection measures, without legitimate authority (April 2022).
In addition, when an economic benefit is infringed by the act of using the portrait or name, etc. of a famous person, without permission, the civil remedies, such as a request for prohibition, a claim for damages, etc., administrative investigations and recommendations for correction will be available (June 2022).
(2) To improve the IP administration service quality:
A patent separation application system will be introduced (April 2022). It is possible to file an application separately for only a claim which is not rejected, within the period of filing a response with the Patent Court, after an appeal against a final rejection decision has been dismissed.
The period of filing a patent•trademark•design trial will be extended (April 2022). The due date of filing an appeal against an examiner’s decision to finally reject a patent application and the due date of filing an appeal against an examiner’s decision to dismiss an amendment in a trademark•design application each will be extended from 30 days to 3 months.
A chat-bot’s consultation service will be operated for 24 hours. An IP customer will be provided with questions and answers about IP rights through the chat-bot consultation service for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year (April 2022).
(3) To strengthen the IP capacity to build a future-oriented IP ecosystem:
A small business’s entitlement will be supported to prevent its IP damage and to help its stable growth. A small business is able to get an IP basic education and an IP application (such as trademark, etc.)-related consultation in the national reginal intellectual property centers (March 2022).
As a base institution for a wide area invention education, KIPO and Gyeongsangbuk-do Office of Education will open an education building (plan to open March 2022), to generalize and support the invention education in Gyeongsangbuk-do and provide an in-depth invention•patent education and space to exhibit and experience an invention to students and the public.
2. The number of IP applications filed in 2021 recorded an all-time high (593,000), with the tireless efforts to secure IP in spite of the infectious disease global epidemic situation
-The number of the applications filed by small and medium companies and ventures increased by 11%.
The number of IP applications filed in 2021 approached 600,000, recording an all-time high.
Small and medium companies and venture companies with an increase of 11% led the increase in the number of IP applications. Korean companies are considered as having been active in securing IP rights even in difficult economic conditions including COVID-19, etc.
According to KIPO, the number of Korean IP (patent, utility model, trademark and design) applications filed in 2021 totaled 592,615 with an increase of 6.3% compared to 2020.
Although the COVID-19 situation has been prolonged, an average increase (7.7%) in the number of applications filed from 2020~2021, the COVID-19 period, greatly exceeded the average increase (3.6%) of the previous 10 years (2010~2019).
By types of IP rights, the most applications were trademark applications, 285,821, showing a high increase (10.8%) following last year. The number of patent applications was 237,998 with an increase of 5.0%, showing the highest growth rate in recent years.
By the types of applicants, small and medium companies and venture companies led the increase in the total number of IP applications filed in 2021.
The number of the applications filed by small and medium companies and venture companies in 2021 totaled 183,796, increasing by 11% compared to 2020. This increase is clearly higher compared to 0.8% by big companies, 6.1% by universities and public research institutes and 4.3% by individuals.
Venture companies filed a total of 62,845 applications, showing a remarkable achievement with an increase of 19.8% which is more than 3 times in comparison to a total average, 6.3%.
In view of patent applications, the number of patent applications filed by venture companies tends to increase every year. As the technology-based entrepreneurship increases, it is observed that venture companies’ efforts to create patents to secure an initial growth engine has influenced the increase of applications.
The number of patent applications filed by foreign applicants had showed a decline trend since 2018 but greatly rebounded in 2021 (with an increase of 11.7% compared to 2020), boosting the increase in the total IP application number.
By technical fields, in patent applications, the technical fields such as AI, mobile shopping and video communication showed a high increase according to accelerating digital transformation. The top five in an increase of the number of patent applications filed in 2021 are: ① AI+14.4%, ② mobile shopping +13.9%, ③ video communication+9.5%, ④ elevator • packaging machines +7.9%, ⑤ biotechnology +7.3% (based on 35 technological fields (WIPO)).
In trademark applications, the increase of service business classes was 18.4%, showing a remarkable growth compared to 5.4% in goods classes. By fields, the number of the trademark applications greatly increased around the service business classes including digital broadcasting communications, software development•nuri communication networks (SNS), online shopping malls, etc.
3. KIPO sketches an IP incubating a non-fungible token (NFT)
For the fusion of NFT and Korean IP policies, in January of this year KIPO took the first step for a discussion to view NFT from the perspective of intellectual property (IP).
KIPO is considered as having already used the features of NFT in the IP systems. The ‘service of a trade secret original certificate’ which has been provided since 2010 is it. A trade secret original certificate is a system to prove a fact of keeping a trade secret and a time point of keeping it when a dispute occurs, by registering a unique identification value extracted from an electronic document containing the trade secret. This service can be said as a kind of ‘NFT’ service in the point of electronically certifying that a company’s trade secret-related data is the unique information.
One step further from here, KIPO will analyze in depth NFT from the IP viewpoint and seek a plan to use NFT, by starting up an NFT-IP expert council (tentative name) and initiating a policy research service.
The NFT-IP expert council will be formed of top private experts of the industrial circles including the NFT-related companies, academic circles and legal circles, to analyze the influences on all IP including patents, trademarks, designs, trade secrets, etc. and to find out diverse issues.
Specifically, the NFT-IP expert council will seek a plan to activate an IP transaction by applying NFT to a patent right, a trademark right, etc., or a plan to use NFT in the IP viewpoint, such as a plan to certify the uniqueness of an invention history, etc., by giving NFT to a research note containing the invention•creation processes.
In addition, the NFT-IP expert council will discuss improvements to the previous system, by improving regulations on an infringement to a trademark, design and/or publicity right, which may newly occur by using NFT in metaverse.
This council will also analyze and review NFT in-depth, through the policy research service. A fundamental data to establish the IP policies to present a milestone into a future NFT market is expected to be prepared based on the results of the research.
4. IP information for you is available in one place.
-KIPO’s new representative website has been available from January 12, 2022.
According to KIPO, its reorganized representative website (www.kipo.go.kr) has been operated from January 12, 2022 such that people can easily and fast use the IP information to strengthen policy communication.
The reorganized website is focused on people’s easy use, so that anyone is able to easily understand the information and to search and utilize all of diverse information in the website.
A new menu, ‘find customized information’, is set to provide information classified by user favorites, IP life cycle, and custom type.
A menu having lots of a user access history is periodically synchronized to reflect to the ‘favorites’ menu. The required information, from an idea start step to IP protection, evaluation and transaction and transfer through IP application, examination and registration steps, is listed. A user customized policy information is formed by applicants, agents, inventors, small/medium companies, teachers, students, universities/public research institutes, etc.
In addition, to increase information accessibility, a web collection server is separately built to reduce the time required to search information scattered in many different places. In the reorganized KIPO website, users are able to search all of diverse IP information provided by KIPO and relevant organizations.
As the use of a smart phone becomes routine, a responsive web service to, in real time, respond to the kind of a device and the screen size thereof is built such that the user is able to view the same website information provided in a computer screen through a mobile device.
Finally, the major screen configuration is improved with clear color and simple design so that a user is able to easily understand the content. Upon pressing each menu tap, all of the menu from the top to the last is spread out at a glance so that a user is able to quickly find the desired content.
5. Now, delivery is done by robots!
- The number of patent applications relating to a logistics robot increased by an annual average of 29% over the last 5 years.
Since COVID-19, online shopping and contactless food ordering have become a daily routine, a contactless delivery robot has appeared to handle the increasing delivery.
According to KIPO, the number of the patent applications relating to a mobile robot steadily increased by an annual average of 29% over the last 5 years (2016~2020).
By types of logistics robots, 118 applications (50.4%) were related to selection (pickup) and loading robots for logistics and warehouse and 116 (49.6%) to robots for unmanned delivery. The number of the applications in the field of unmanned delivery robots has sharply increased by 67% every year since 2018.
Such increase is because the development of unmanned delivery technology combining an autonomous driving and AI technology has been active due to the increasing demands for unmanned delivery of various logistics as the contactless services have expanded.
The number of the applications related to the selection (pickup) and loading robots has been recently increased. As the function has been expanded from a function of simply picking up products and delivering them to a function of classifying products and packaging them, the relevant technical development is considered as being intensive.
By the types of applicants, Korean applicants were 78%, taking a bigger part than foreign applicants, 22%, and therefore, Korean companies appeare to pay a lot of attention to the relevant technological development.
Among the Korean applicants, small and medium companies were 32% (76 applications), big companies 22% (52), universities and research institutes 15% (66) and individuals 8% (19), showing that while the big companies were slow in filing the applications; whereas, the number of the applications filed by the small and medium companies increased by an annual average of 90% since 2018.
Notably, from the point of view that the number of the unmanned delivery robot-related applications filed by small and medium companies increased, Korean small and medium companies are considered to be concentrated on the technology development in the field of unmanned delivery.
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