1. A person who conducts an unfair act during a trial is to pay the cost of the trial up to 30 times more.
-An amendment to a ‘notice of a determination of the cost of a trial relating to an industrial property right’ has been enacted on January 25, 2022.
According to KIPO, a ‘notice of a determination of the cost of a trial relating to an industrial property right’ has been operated to in advance block an unfair act by increasing the effectiveness of a trial cost burden.
The content of the amendment to the Trademark Act is as follows:
In the case where a trial decision is made as to a right which is obtained by a false or unfair act or the fact of an unfair act is found during a trial, in the case of winning a case by late submission of evidence to the court after not submitting it on purpose or with gross negligence, those acts are regarded as unfair acts.
Anyone that conducts an unfair act should bear the cost of a trial, regardless of winning and losing, and should pay the entire cost that the used for the opponent has used for the trial. The cost of a trial includes ① fees for requesting a trial, ② agent remuneration and ③ bills and the fees for the other paperwork ad drawings, etc.
Since it is a principle that a loser in a trial should pay the cost of the trial, there has been a problem where the person/party whom an unfair act was committed against should pay the cost of the trial even though it lost the trial by the unfair act. This amendment is to improve this matter.
The Amendment also includes that, when a person bears the cost of a trial, the person to whom the unfair act was committed can request an actual hiring cost (up to 7,400,000 Korea Won) as an agent remuneration.
Since an agent remuneration could be charged within the fees for requesting a trial (hundreds of thousands of Korea Won), previously, the problem was that, even though a person to whom an unfair act was committed spent millions Korea Won as the cost of appointing an agent, the person could not receive the cost of appointing an agent as the cost of the trial.
According to Article 9 (2) of the ‘notice of a determination of the cost of a trial relating to an industrial property right’, the amount that a person concerned pays or is to pay to a patent attorney who acts as an agent in a trial should be an amount to be paid by the person concerned by a remuneration contract within the range of the fees of requesting a trial or a retrial.
As this Amendment makes it clear that a person conducting an unfair act, such as unlawfulness, intentionality or gross negligence, in a trial should bear the cost of the trial by paying the actual expenses, the effect of leading a sincere and fair trial is expected.
2. An amendment to the Korean Trademark Act passed in the plenary session of the National Assembly.
-It becomes easy for an individual•small business•small and medium company to obtain a trademark right!
-As the amendment to the Trademark Act has passed and a partial rejection system and a re-examination requesting system have been introduced, these are to be helpful in securing a trademark of an individual•small business.
-The types of acts of using a trademark expand according to the transaction activation of digital goods.
According to KIPO, the partial amendment to the Korean Trademark Act to introduce a partial rejection system and a re-examination requesting system and to expand the types of acts of using a trademark passed in the plenary session of the National Assembly on January 11, 2022.
[Introduction of a partial rejection system]
Under the current act, even though a rejection reason relates to a part of the designated goods in a trademark application, unless an applicant deletes or amends the goods having the rejection reason, the other goods having no rejection reason are finally rejected.
However, in the amendment, when a rejection reason is present in part of the designated goods, even though an applicant does not take any measures of deleting the relevant goods, etc., the goods having no rejection reason are able to be registered for a trademark. Therefore, this system will be helpful in securing a trademark right for the applicants, such as an individual or a small or medium company, who is not familiar with the procedures and systems for a trademark application and does not properly respond to a notice of a rejection reason due to the problems of time and cost, etc.
[Introduction of a re-examination requesting system]
Since the current act requires that an appeal be filed against an examiner’s decision of final rejection of a trademark filed in an application, the rejection should be overcome through an appeal trial even in the case of simply solving a final rejection reason.
Under the re-examination requesting system as newly established, when it is possible to simply remedy a rejection reason through an amendment of the goods, etc., an applicant is able to request an examiner to conduct a re-examination, instead of an appeal, thereby expanding an opportunity that the applicant can overcome a decision of a final rejection.
3. The IP cooperation partnership between Korea-Saudi Arabia has been concluded.
-KIPO decided to send 11 Korean IP experts to carry forward 35 projects in 5 fields for 2 years.
Taking an opportunity that President Jae-In MOON visited Saudi Arabia, Yong-Rae KIM, Commissioner of KIPO, and Abdulaziz Muhammad AlSwailem, Commissioner of the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (SAIP) signed an agreement for a strengthened strategical partnership in a meeting of the Commissioners of KIPO and SAIP.
As this agreement to promise the start of a new cooperation after finishing successfully the first Korea-Saudi Arabia cooperation which was carried forward in 2019 has been concluded in line with President MOON’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the IP cooperation between the two countries is expected to gain more momentum.
When Bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, visited Korea in June 2019, the IP cooperation between the two has been fully operated as KIPO and SAIP signed the cooperative agreement in the four fields (① establishment of P strategies, ② IP information system, ③ strengthening of an examiner’s ability and ④ operation of IP civil service consultation center) under the presence of the summits of the two countries.
Accordingly, KIPO sent a total of 19 (accumulated) private and public IP experts to SAIP, △ preparing the national IP strategies suitable for the local circumstances of Saudi Arabia, △ providing an 1:1 customized education such the patent and trademark examiners are able to perform high quality examinations, and △ improving the administrative system by reorganizing the IP-field laws and establishing the information system road map, etc.
Based on the past achievements, this agreement specifically states 35 projects in 5 fields that KIPO and SAIP will carry forward focusing on, ▲ IP ecosystem formation, ▲ patent examination, ▲ national IP strategies, ▲ IP academy and ▲ IP information, etc. This agreement also includes that 11 Korean IP experts are to be sent for 2 years, to effectively fulfill those projects.
Since the IP academy program which has been newly added in this agreement includes the major content of operating an invention classroom for elemently, middle and high school students and preparing a customized IP education curriculum for universities, companies and research institutes, etc., it is expected to contribute to training of creative talent people and spreading of IP respecting culture.
4. KIPO has been selected as the most innovative IP organization in the world.
-The world has recognized digital IP competitiveness shining in the crisis.
KIPO announced that it took a first place together with EUIPO in intellectual property innovation ranking 2021, which World Trademark Review (WTR) published by evaluating the major intellectual property offices in the world.
Through the continuing innovation efforts including the introduction of a world-first mobile trademark application system (2020), etc., KIPO consistently rose to a high rank, the 6th place in 2019 and the 3rd place in 2020, and has for the first time achieved the feat of winning the 1st place in the 2021 evaluation.
In this evaluation conducted on the top 60 IP offices in the number of trademark applications filed in 2020, Singapore, which was 1st in 2020, has taken 3rd, England 4th, Japan 12th and US 13th.
In this evaluation, KIPO has risen to the 1st place which is higher by 5 levels compared to 2020 (6th) in the online service ability area providing the convenience of using its website, the electronic application filing system and the search system using AI, etc.
In addition, KIPO has taken 1st this year from 23rd in 2020 in the user communication effort area of measuring the communication extent with the persons concerned by holding a trademark system presentation and providing a social relation network for an applicant, etc.
Meantime, KIPO has made efforts to increase the examination quality by developing an AI-based trademark image search system for examiners and it has continued to improve the electronic application filing system so that 98% of the trademark applications were online filed in 2021.
Moreover, KIPO also has strengthened the online and offline control to prevent the distribution of counterfeits since the distribution of counterfeits has increased through online due to the contactless life as COVID-19 has been prolonged.
5. KIPO and Industrial circles put heads together for the 1st place in creating a patent relating to the electric vehicle charging infrastructure
KIPO held an IP council meeting in the field of the electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
The meeting was arranged to share the major technologies and the industrial and patent trends and to establish the policy directions in the electric vehicle charging infrastructure field to expand the supply of electric vehicles, which is a carbon neutral core field.
This IP council is formed around 12 companies including big companies, small and medium companies, start-ups and government-funded research institutes, etc. which filed multiple applications in the Korean electric vehicle charging infrastructure field.
Through this council, KIPO will continuously share the world electric vehicle charging infrastructure-related patent trends with industrial circles and it will positively support the fostering of the electric vehicle charging infrastructure industry through the cooperation of big, small and medium companies and research institutes.
The number of the world patent applications in the worldwide electric vehicle charging infrastructure major technological fields filed over the last 10 years (2010~2019) increased by an annual average of 14%. The major techniques relating to the electric vehicle charging infrastructure include: super fast charging, two-way charging, charging infrastructure management, charging control, charging fee payment, battery monitoring techniques.
The number of the relevant Korean applications showed a high increase of an annual average of 12% from the year of 2015 and it passed the number of the relevant applications filed in US and Japan since 2016. The number of the relevant applications filed in 2019 was 265, maintaining a 2nd place in the world, following the Chinese applications, 1,436.
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