1. KIPO introduced ‘COVID-19 preferential examination’ to an international organization.
In the launch event of the ‘Patent Landscape Report’ on COVID-19 related vaccines and therapeutics, which was held by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), KIPO was invited as a panelist to share information on ‘COVID-19 patent preferential examination’ of KIPO.
The ‘Patent Landscape Report’ analyzes patent activities on COVID-19 related vaccines and therapeutics during the global pandemic period and includes the content to guide the relevant patent policies, strategical research plans and technology transfer, etc. of the relevant countries.
Not only the experts and professors of the major international organizations relating to COVID-19 but the patent experts of KIPO, USPTO and China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) attended in a seminar of the launch event in which the moderator was Mr. Marco AlemÐn, Assistant Director General of WIPO.
This event provided a place to discuss the current status of the technology development relating to the COVID-19 vaccine platform and therapeutics, the partnership/cooperation of the relevant research and development (R&D), and the observation of the effects and contributions of the patent systems, etc.
Notably, as the ‘Patent Landscape Report’ shows that the COVID-19 related patent applications filed with KIPO were relatively rapidly published and registered compared to the other countries, the KIPO’s COVID-19 related patent preferential examination system was introduced in the seminar.
In June 2021, KIPO improved the preferential examination system (by amending the Patent Act) to flexibly and rapidly respond to an emergent situation, such as COVID-19, etc., which was added to the subjects of the previous examination. When a Korean company uses the preferential examination system, the relevant patent application is able to be examined within an average of 2.3 months and therefore the time taken for a patent examination is expected to be shorten by about 10 months, compared to the total average time.
2. A seminar was held to present the patent and industry trends in biotechnology and health care (bio healthcare)
KIPO’s bio patent study group held a seminar to present the patent and industry trends in biotechnology and health care (bio healthcare).
The seminar was arranged to be helpful in establishing the future strategies in the biotechnology and health care (bio healthcare) which are parts of the innovative growth big 3 (BIG3) industries.
About 200 industry-university-research experts attended the online seminar, to analyze the Korean technology levels and to discuss future research directions and plans to improve competitiveness.
The first part in the seminar was to present ↘ the patent and industry trends in the microbiome area, ♭ the patent and industry trends in the digital health care area, and ♩ the examination practice guide in the biotechnology area, which were analyzed by KIPO examiners.
In the topic presentation on ‘microbiome’ and ‘digital healthcare’, explanations were provided about the results of the recent technology and patent trends, and the world industry trends and the policy analysis of major countries.
The major content of the bio technology examination practice guide which was legislated and revised was explained to support the preemptive protection of inventions relating to the latest new bio technology and convergence technology.
A second turn was to listen to the voice from the industry of the leading bio technology companies, the startups and ventures.
The ‘BIO technology research institute’ of CheilJedang (CJ) shared the promising industrial trends and the world industrial strategies in the agriculture, food, energy and environmental bio technology (green and white bio) through a world venture capital (VC) investment and an analysis of company and technology.
Medi Whale Inc. suggested an implication on the discovery of startups and the support for them, through the presentation of the current state of the digital health care-related patents and competitors.
3. KIPO operated the crackdown and guidance on counterfeit products relating to K-pop fan goods.
-A plan was to jointly crack down on counterfeit products around the concert hall where the Bulletproof Boy Scouts (BTS) performed, together a trademark owner.
-Major entertainment management companies and Korea Music Content Association together operated the crackdown on online counterfeit products.
In September 2019, the KIPO’s IP special judicial police criminally charged the persons related in four (4) wholesale businesses which distributed the counterfeits relating to the BTS fan goods through online and offline channels and confiscated about 7,600 counterfeit items infringing trademarks.
For three (3) days starting March 10, 2022, KIPO and HYBE Co., Ltd. (which is the agency of BTS) carried out the crackdown and guidance activities on the counterfeits relating to the BTS fan goods at the place where BTS’s concert was held in Seoul.
Before the concert began, through the BTS official channel, HYBE Co., Ltd. requested to refrain from buying the counterfeits relating to the fan goods. On the day of the concert, this company informed consumers and BTS fans that it and KIPO special judicial police would jointly crack down the counterfeits.
In addition, together with Korea Music Content Association and the major domestic entertainment management companies (HYBE, SM, JYP, YG), KIPO intensively investigated the counterfeits relating to K-pop goods in the major online markets from February 21 to March 14, 2022. Based on the information collected during the crackdown process, KIPO will proceed with planning an investigation on a large-scaled habitual seller.
4. Ask KIPO for a help about an international IP dispute
KIPO published to recruit companies to participate in a program, ‘2022 strategical support to respond to a global IP dispute’, from March 4, 2022.
To respond to the recently increasing global patent litigation, non-practicing entity (NPE)’s abuse of litigation, overseas distribution of counterfeits, etc., KIPO provided 14,900,000,000 Korea Won (which increased by 4,000,000,000 Korea Won compared to 2021) into the program to support small and medium companies in global IP disputes.
From this year, the support for small and medium companies having difficulties due to global IP disputes is to expand, and the type of the support is varied by the type of dispute, from the prevention of disputes to a response to current issues.
First, an analysis service of considering patent infringement or being patent-infringed is newly introduced such that small and medium companies are able to prevent a patent dispute and to prepare for such a case. This service informs whether your company’s product has infringed a competitor’s patent or a competitor has infringed your own patent.
Step by step customized responding strategies, such as a warning notice, a trial, a license agreement, etc. are provided when a patent dispute occurs as when your company is accused of patent infringement or your company’s patent is infringed.
Demonstration support is provided to a patent dispute between a small or medium company and a big company. In the case where a big company infringes a small or medium company’s patent technology or counterattacks by illegally entitling a small or medium company’s technology, a response to the patent dispute of the small or medium company which is relatively weak will be supported.
As for a small or medium company with its own trademark right which is illegally preempted in a foreign country, ↘ strategies responding to the illegal preemption of the right, to support a request for opposition or a trial for invalidation, ♭ strategies responding to the damage to the trademark and the shape imitation, to support an administrative control and a legal response on the counterfeits abroad, and ♩ strategies to protect a brand in a foreign country, by securing a trademark overseas.
Support is provided to a joint response when (3 or more) companies have damages by a single IP dispute issue, such as the cases where common damages of a big company and a partner have resulted from NPE’s patent litigation, companies are accused in a group relating to standard patents or a trademark is illegally preempted by a trademark broker.
In this case, IP dispute-related companies are able to reduce the dispute cost through the joint response and to share know-how, and the effectiveness of the dispute response can be maximized by increasing the legal responsiveness and the power of negotiation.
The consultation fees regarding patent dispute responsive strategies are increased from a maximum of 100,000,000 Korea Won (2021) to 200,000,000 Korea Won (2022) per year, which will be continuously supported up to 3 years.
5. KIPO strengthened the support to protect an intellectual property right of a K-content company.
-Customized content IP protection strategies and content IP on-site advisory services are provided
KIPO published to enlist, from March 4, 2022, K-content companies to participate in a program, ‘2022 K-content IP protection support’.
As the content including soap dramas, animations, games, etc. through One Source Multi Use (OSMU) has been actively expanded and reproduced, copyrights, trademarks (title of a soap drama, etc.) and designs (goods design) have become important in the content industry.
Under such a situation, this program is to support the securing of IP rights including trademarks and designs, etc. as to K-content which has been popular worldwide and to find promising K-content companies to be intensively supported to improve the competitiveness to advance overseas.
The program to support the K-content IP protection is to provide various content companies of soap dramas, animations, games, etc. with multifaceted strategies for IP protection which is needed in the process of advancing overseas.
The customized content IP protection strategies include ‘content commercialization and step-by-step implementation plan (roadmap) of IP strategies’ to support the strategies for advancing overseas, commercialization strategies and protection strategies of IP abroad, etc., and ‘content license strategies’ to support the review and consultation relating to a license agreement with a foreign company, by analyzing the content that a participating company holds and the IP performance data (portfolio) thereof.
In addition, the operation of the content IP on-site advisory service expands to provide, without charge, basic protection consulting on a general protection of the content-related IP by directly visit the relevant company.
As the result of KIPO’s supporting the K-content IP protection support program to 26 companies in 2020, a total of 283 trademark applications (averaging 13 applications per participating company) were filed and about 63% of the participating companies (14 of 22 respondent companies) answered that this program contributed to overseas expansion.
A company which wants to participate the 2022 K-content IP protection support program may request through the IP protection comprehensive portal (www.ip-navi.or.kr) . Details are available at KIPO website (www.kipo.go.kr) and Korea Intellectual Property Protection Agency website (www.koipa.re.kr).
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