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‘Patent information’ is also a national asset…enactment and enforcement of ‘industrial property information act’ (News Letter No. 536) |
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KH |
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2024-09-19 |
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1. ‘Patent information’ is also a national asset…enactment and enforcement of ‘industrial property information act’
- An act relating to promotion of management and use of industrial property information came into effect (August 7, 2024).
- Counter-intelligence agencies share a national security technology status, to block technology leaks overseas.
- Bigdata of patent information are efficient in preventing duplicate research and understanding global technology trends, etc.
The industrial property information act, which specifies the basis for strategic use of patent information of 580 million cases worldwide, has come into full effect, to prevent a national security-related technology from leaking and to establish efficient industrial property strategies, etc.
According to KIPO, the ‘act relating to promotion of management and use of industrial property information’ (hereinafter, referred to as the ‘industrial property information act’) has come into effect since August 7, 2024, and the act includes content covering all aspects of collection, generation, organization, management and use of industrial property information.
The patent information (including trademark and design information) of 580 million cases worldwide, which are held by KIPO, are core information which is strategically useful when preventing overlapping research and development (R&D), analyzing major industryㆍeconomyㆍsecurity-related issues, and establishing national policies and company management strategies, etc.
However, despite this vast amount of patent information, there were difficulties in actively using the patent information since the legal basis to use it was insufficient.
The industrial property information act consists of: ① providing the industrial property information for national security prevention of technology leaks, ② analysis and use of the industrial property information for technological and industrial support, and ③ building of the patent information infrastructure.
The enforcement of the industrial property information act has prepared the basis to analyze and use the patent information in a pending application to prevent a national security-related technology from leaking and also makes it possible to build a cooperation system among agencies for technology protection, such as by providing a result of analysis to a national administration agency.
Previously, since only patent data laid open after 18 months from a filing date of an application were used, there was a limitation in analyzing an updated technology and providing information to other agencies. However, the enactment of this industrial property information act makes it possible to respond immediately to urgent matters related to technology security.
Patent information for R&D and industrial support is made into bigdata, to collect and organize patent information including public information of inventors, such as Korean companies, researchers, etc.
Patent information is processed and analyzed based on the bigdata, thereby enabling the establishment of efficient industrial strategies to understand global technology trends at the right time and the prevention of overlapping research.
The patent information infrastructure to build the patent information system and database and to prepare the basis of information business, etc. is built so that comprehensive and systematic management becomes possible.
In line with the enforcement of the industrial property information act, KIPO will also establish a basic plan to use industrial property information to find and organize various information data for strategic analysis and use of patent information, to prevent technology leaks and to protect technology, and to support in utilizing industrial property information.
To this end, in June the basic plan establishment promotion team to use industrial property information was launched with external experts from industry and academia, etc. The basis plan will be prepared by collecting various opinions from all walks of life, such as the related department(s), patent information service companies, applicants, inventors, etc.
The director of the Industrial Property Information Bureau of KIPO said, “in the situation where industrial technology leakage and infringement problems have persisted, taking an opportunity of the enforcement of the industrial property information act, we will establish a technological safety net for Korean companies by using the patent information and will also support Korean companies and research institutes so as to create much more excellent patents.”
2. Young people from 10 countries develop their start-up dreams through K-IP education.
- KIPO operated a 2024 IP education program for Korea-WIPO start-up.
KIPO announced to operate a 2024 IP education program for Korea-WIPO start-up (‘summer school on start-up’) by online and in International Intellectual Property Training Institute (IIPTI located in Daejeon) from August 5~16, 2024, to strengthen worldwide young people’ IP capabilities.
This program which KIPO started and has operated since 2008 with cooperation with WIPO has the purpose of providing worldwide college students and newcomers to society with knowledge of overall IP rights and making them aware of the importance of IP. As 611 people from about 120 countries took the course of this program by 2023, this program has contributed to solving IP gaps among countries.
This year education program was conducted for 123 students who applied from a total of 40 countries including Asia, Africa, South America, Europe, etc. For the first week (August 5~9), basic education was provided online (ZOOM) and for the second week (August 12~16), among the participants, about 20 people residing in South Korea took offline classes in the IIPTI, focusing on practice such as IP search and participatory discussion, etc.
This year’s education program on the subject, “Start-up and IP”, included the IP knowledge needed in start-up process and the general IP-related content, such as ▲ creation of an IP portfolio of a start-up, ▲ start-up funding using IP, ▲ trademark (brand) value creation and protection strategies, etc.
The dean of the IIPTI under KIPO said, “this education program will increase the worldwide young people’s understanding of IP and provide them with information to effectively use IP in start-up and innovation activities”. The dean also added, “KIPO will continue to develop education programs for people to systematically learn IP and to cultivate the ability to apply what they have learned to real life.”
3. Patent examination GPT will be available for quick answers to questions on patent examination.
- KIPO held an initiation briefing session for development of AI-based patent examination support services (August 1, 2024).
- Q&A AI chatbot service, trial decision or written judgement (sentencing) search service, argument summery service, etc. will be introduced in December this year.
KIPO held an initiation briefing session for the development of successful super giant AI-based patent examination support services.
This initiation briefing session was part of ‘2024 super giant AI-based service development support project’ which was hosted by Presidential Committee on the Digital Platform Government and the Ministry of Science and ICT and carried forward by the Korea National Information Society Agency (NIA).
KIPO forming consortium with Saltlux Inc. and Zen IP participated in a contest for this project promoted to accelerate the routine use of AI in public sectors and the realization of digital platform government and it was finally selected after overcoming competition of more than 10:1.
In the initiation briefing session where the director of the Industrial Property Information Bureau of KIPO, a vice present of Saltlux Inc., a CEO of Zen IP and others attended, they shared the details of the development of super giant AI-based patent examination support services and discussed matters for cooperation among the consortium implementing agencies.
The patent examination support services are realized by combining the patent-related data (such as laws and regulations, KIPO’s examination standards, commentary on each article, counseling casebook, applicants’ arguments, etc.) and the super giant language model (Luxia) developed by Saltlux Inc.
Through these services, since AI quickly provides an examiner with the patent examination-related information and a source of the information, the accuracy and efficiency of examination are expected to increase.
The content of the major development includes: ▲ examination information Q&A service to provide an answer to a question from an examiner, ▲ AI’s search service of trial decision and/or written judgement (sentencing) to assist a judge in making a decision, ▲ AI’s patent search service of recommending a patent search formula, and ▲ a service of summarizing an applicant’s argument submitted during examination procedures.
After a thorough development process and testing, KIPO plans to provide the supergiant AI-based patent examination support services in December of this year.
The director of the Industrial Property Information Bureau of KIPO said, “at present, KIPO’s examination workload is increasing since the number of applications has increased and the difficulty of examination has increased due to technological advancement.” The director also added, “we will improve the examination work environments and increase the examination efficiency by using AI, to support Korean companies so as to have global patent competitiveness by rapidly securing patents.”
4. KIPO published results of analyzing robot-related designs.
- The number of design applications related to a cooperation robot which collaborates with a human has clearly increased.
KIPO presented the results of an in-depth analysis of robot design application trends. As a result, the number of design applications relating to cooperation robots working in collaboration with a human increased by an annual average of 19.5% over the past 20 years, showing a marked growth.
This analysis result report is made to be used as reference materials for a design examination to efficiently examine a robot-related design as part of active administration and to be helpful for the relevant industry to research and develop a robot-related design.
The points of the in-depth analysis results are that: robot-related designs of the applications filed with IP5 (KIPO, USPTO, JPO, CNIPA, EPO) and WIPO are classified into private robots, industrial robots, and mobile robots depending on the purposes of the robots, and each of them are subdivided again by design characteristics.
<40% or more of robot-related design applications are for industrial robots, and the number of design applications for mobile robots has sharply increased.>
The number of robot-related design applications filed with IP5 and WIPO from 2003 to 2022 increased by an annual average of 8.3% over the past 20 years, generally maintaining an upward trend.
Upon reviewing the details, the number of design applications for ‘industrial robots’, which were active in the manufacturing industry, accounted for more than 40% of a total number of robot-related design applications every year after 2003, maintaining a gradual upward trend.
As to the number of design applications for private robots, which were once attracting attention as a promising field, the proportion of the cumulative applications was 44.6% in 2003 but continued to decrease to 23.4% at the present time. Whereas, the number of mobile robot-related design applications was only 2.3% of a total of robot-related design applications in 2003 but it showed a sharp upward trend to now reach 26.9%.
The number of design applications especially relating to ‘co-bots’, that is, ‘cooperation robots’, among the industrial robots ae growing rapidly increasing by an annual average 19.5% over the past 20 years. From 2017, the number of cooperation robot-related design applications started to outpace the number of design applications for a ‘vertical articulated robot’, which could be said to be a traditional powerhouse in the industrial robot field, and had the upper hand until 2022.
Unlike the other industrial robots, a cooperation robot was designed to collaborate and operate in the same space as a human. A cooperation robot is usually small in size and it is suitable for implementing precise movements like a human hand. It is characterized by a soft and organic appearance as it has to work with people.
Cooperation robots have been active with humans in various fields, such as a smart factory to assemble precision electronic products, an operating room in a hospital, a coffee shop, etc. These robots are expected to continue to grow, together with the relevant markets, such as health care, advanced food tech, etc.
5. KIPO listens to voices from the field of an excellent IP financial company.
- GF Fermentech Inc. financed a business by an IP mortgage loan, to grow sales and operating profit.
- Opinions from fields were collected and improvements were discussed through a corporate field communication.
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As part of corporate field communication, KIPO visited GF Fermentech Inc. a company specialized in bio health care materials.
This field visit was arranged to share in the excellent performance of the company using an IP mortgage loan through KIPO’s IP valuation support program and to seek a plan for much more innovative companies to smoothly raise funds by using IP.
< IP finance and IP valuation support program>
◇ IP finance is to raise funds through mortgage loan, investment, security/guarantee, etc. based on IP, such as a patent, which a company holds.
* In 2023, the IP financial scale was 9.61 trillion Korea Won, increasing by an annual average of 26.5% over the past 3 years.
◇ IP valuation support program is to support part of the cost of IP valuation to evaluate the economic value of IP, so that a company is able to use it for IP finance and commercialization based on the IP value.
* Subject: small/medium companies, Type: support for IP financing (collateral, guarantee, investment) and for IP transaction or commercialization.
Last year, GF Fermentech Inc. received a loan of 1 billion Korea Won as to its patent by KIPO’s IP valuation support. This company actively utilized the loan funds for operating funds, such as manufacturing expenses, etc., increasing sales by 49.4% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period last year and achieving achievements, such as turning operating profit margin into a surplus.
The commissioner of KIPO said, “IP finance is used as an important means of financing for companies having excellent technology…KIPO will strengthen support for much more innovative companies to be able to grow based on the IP finance.”
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