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Investigation on design•tility model infringement will be possible without a victim's complaint.(News Letter No. 481)

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KH

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2022-06-02

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1. Investigation on design•tility model infringement will be possible without a victim’s complaint.

-Revisions of the Korea Design Protection Act and Utility Model Act have passed the plenary session of the Korea National Assembly.

According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the revisions of the Korean Design Protection Act and Utility Model Art (the relevant bill was proposed by Soyoung LEE, a congresswoman) which will enable the investigation act of design•utility model infringement without a victim’s complaint have passed the plenary session of the Korea National Assembly.

Previously, since the design•utility model infringement was regulated as a ‘crime subject to complaint? which a victim should accuse within 6 months from the day when the victim noticed the culprit, the victim could not receive criminal relief if the period of the complaint expired.

Under these revisions to the relevant Acts, a victim is able to accuse an infringer with no time limit for complaints and to get the investigation and criminal relief thereof, thereby further strengthening the protection of design•utility model right holders.

Specifically, since it is impossible to investigate a ‘crime subject to complaint?without a victim’s complaint, there would be a problem in that an investigation agency cannot fully proceed with the investigation even though it is aware of the infringement of a right.

As the design•utility model infringement has been changed to an ‘offence unpunishable over objection? by these revisions, an investigation agency proceeds with the relevant investigation, without a lawful right holder’s complaint but it respects the victim’s opinion if the victim does not want punishment.

Even if a lawful right holder does not timely respond to infringement due to a lack of legal knowledge, etc., since an investigation agency is able to investigate ex officio, these revisions are expected to seek the prevention and recovery of damages.




2. The way to file a patent application in the biotechnology area will change.

-A seminar was held on how to make gene sequence listings which will change from July.

On May 9, 2022 KIPO and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) jointly held an online seminar on how to make gene sequence listings which will be applied from July 2022.

To improve the value and usability of data, WIPO developed a new gene sequence list which all of the worldwide intellectual property offices commonly use. Previously, since there were no common forms and structures, each intellectual property office would differently interpret and implement, it was difficult to convert data and data loss would be caused upon inputting data to the database.

To prevent excessive confusion by sporadic standard conversion by country, from July 1, 2022 all the worldwide intellectual property office will receive only sequence listings to be made based on the new standards.

Unlikely general patent applications, when a patent application in the biotechnology area is filed, it is necessary to describe the information of amino acid and nucleotide sequence forming genes. The new standard for sequence listings includes many changes to require more information of sequence features to be described than the previous information thereof and to adopt a data format which is able to verify whether the sequence listings as made comply with the standard.

In this online seminar, a patent expert in the biotechnology area was invited as a lecturer, such that users do not have any difficulty in making sequence listings using the new software tool.

Although there was no limit on the number of participants due to the online seminar, anyone that wanted to participate in this seminar needed to get in advance an online seminar link address through online seminar request link of WIPO.

For the user’s convenience, they can freely view the seminars since WIPO will support the videos of this year and the last year seminars on the new standard of sequence listings.




3. The number of patent litigation relating to Korean companies in USA has increased, creating a need to prepare the response strategies thereof.

-KIPO published an annual report of 2021 IP Trend.

On May 8, 2022, KIPO and Korea Intellectual Property Protection Agency published the annual report of 2021 IP Trend, analyzing the trends of the Korean companies-related patent litigation in USA, the major IP issues, etc.

This report provides the relevant information so that a Korean company is able to properly respond to an overseas IP dispute and is available for download at IP-NAVI (www.ip-navi.or.kr), which is an IP protection portal.

According to the analysis results of this IP Trend, the number of the patent litigation cases between a Korean company and an overseas company in USA deceased during 2019~2020 but it increased to 250 in 2021, with an increase of about 33.7% compared to 187 in 2020.

By the size of a business, 210 litigation cases relate to Korean big companies and 40 to Korean small and medium companies, showing that big companies among the Korean companies involved in the litigation with overseas companies occupied a high proportion.

Whereas Korean big companies were most accused (176 cases); small and medium companies were complaint (24) and accused (16) showing that Korean small and medium companies have actively exercised their rights against overseas companies.

The Korean company-related litigation was focused on the information and communication area and the electrical and electronic area (74%). The percentage of the accused by non-practicing entities (NPE) among the total number of the accused was high (77.6%).

Notably, since the number of the litigation cases in the information and communication area increased by about 74.1% compared to the previous year, it was considered that the relevant Korean companies in USA would need to prepare for the litigation.

KIPO has been providing diverse information through the IP protection portal, IP-NAVI, for Korean companies to prevent overseas IP litigation and to minimized damages from a dispute.

KIPO has also provided the current situation of IP disputes arising in major countries, the analysis report of major cases thereof, the information related to NPE which has a high probability to file a lawsuit against a Korean company, the IP-related statutory content by country, etc.

As KIPO has guided in an integrated way the support programs to protect Korean companies?IP rights, an individual company is able to search a business that fits its situation and to request support.




4. A face-to-face meeting of Trade Mark 5 Forum (TM5) was successively held within 3 years.

On May 3, 2022, KIPO published that KIPO TM5 had successively finished a face-to-face meeting in Washington D.C. on April 27 and 28 (local time) in three years after they held only online meetings for two years due to COVID-19.

TM 5 is a cooperation forum in the trademark area, that is comprised of the five main trademark offices including KIPO, USPTO, CNIPA, JPO and EPO, occupying more than 60% of the trademark applications in the world (started in 2012).

TM5 with the 105h anniversary this year has operated 16 projects and made efforts to make a user-friendly trademark system through various among countries and to develop the system.

In this meeting, the delegations from 5 countries (South Korea, USA, China, Japan and Europe) and the WIPO Madrid Bureau attended to listen each country’s opinion on the current tasks and future new tasks.

As this meeting was held in connection with an annual meeting (April 30~May 4) of the International Trademark Association (INTA), which is the largest private meeting in the trademark area, the trademark systems of the TM5 countries were described to more users and diverse information was provided to them.

KIPO arranged a face-to-face PR booth in the INTA annual meeting which was held in the Washington Convention Center in Washington D.C., USA and a contactless PR booth in the extended virtual world (metaverse), to enable the users to understand the revisions of the Korea Trademark Act., etc.

KIPO provided an explanation of the revisions to the Korea Trademark Act, including the partial rejection system which was revised in January and will be enforced in February 2023, and it introduced how to search Korean trademarks and patents, etc. KIPO also listened to a need to improve the relevant system through Q&A.

Especially, as a TM5 meeting in 2023 will be held in South Korea, KIPO announced to continue to carry forward the cooperation among the five major countries to make a user-friendly trademark system.




5. The technology growth of a hydrogen refueling station accelerates the popularization of hydrogen cars.

-The number of the relevant patent applications by the major countries has increased by an annual average of 15.6% since 2010.

According to KIPO, the number of a hydrogen refueling station-related patent applications filed by major countries in the world has sharply increased by an annual average of 15.6% since 2010.

Such a sharp increase in the number of the relevant patent applications is considered as having resulted from a great increase in global interest in hydrogen cars and hydrogen refueling facilities as parts of climate change response policy.

The number of the hydrogen refueling station-related patent applications filed with KIPO by IP 5 for about the last 20 years totaled 1,352, including 504 (37.3%) by China, 282 (20.9%) by Japan, 257 (19.0%) by US, 171 (12.6%) by South Korea and 138 (10.2%) by Europe.

Upon reviewing the applications by an applicant nationality, Japan was most active in the relevant technology development (423 applications, 31.3%), followed by China (395, 29.2%) with the technology development which is expected to be much faster in the future from the view of the rapid increase in the number of the relevant applications since 2018, Europe (254, 18.8%), South Korea (134, 9.9%) and US (117, 8.7%).

South Korea showed an increase by an annual average of 5.5% after the number of the applications greatly increased since 2010 but the growth was somewhat lower in comparison to the worldwide average, 15.6%. Recently (since 2019), in the liquid hydrogen refueling station technology area, South Korea (8 applications) overtook the other countries, Europe (8), Japan (5), China (5) and US (3). However, since South Korea (6) was relatively lower in the complex hydrogen refueling station technology to refuel hydrogen, to charge electric or to fill up with gasoline, compared to China (21) and US (11), it needs to expand research and development in this technology area in the future..

In South Korea, although companies (79.9%) filed most of the relevant applications, since universities (6.7%) and research institutes (4.5%) occupied somewhat high percentages compared to the averages (3.6% and 2.3%) in the other countries, not only private companies but also academia and research circles are considered as actively conducting research and development.

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