1. The 20th Korea-China intellectual property (IP) informatization expert meeting was held.
-Cooperation for Korea-China information is to be strengthened from international standards to artificial intelligence (AI).
The Ministry of Intellectual Property (MOIP) held the 20th Korea-China IP informatization expert meeting, together with the informatization experts of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA).
The Korea-China IP informatization expert meeting is a consultative body which has been held alternately by the two countries taking the 2002 meeting of the commissioners of KIPO and CNIPA as an opportunity, sharing experiences in informatization policy and system development and leading technological cooperation and mutual development over the past 20 years.
In this meeting, the experts shared the latest IP informatizayion system development situation. Regarding the international IP information standardization, they also exchanged their opinions on the current situation of development progress of the system respond to ST.92, , and IP information exchange standard-related trends.
Notably, while AI technology has rapidly spread throughout IP administration, this meeting focused on both countries’ AI utilization and innovation cases. The experts from MOIP presented the current status and future plans relating to AI-based patent and design search system construction, and those from CNIPA shared the status of introducing AI into patent examination system and the cases of using AI in routine administrative work.
In addition, the patent search and examination systems which have been built and operated by MOIP were also demonstrated for participants to show how AI technology is used in patent search and examination systems, thereby continuing substantial technical exchanges of enhancing technical understanding between the two countries’ experts and sharing AI introduction experiences and operation cases.
2. The amendment to the Unfair Competition Prevention Act was passed by the National Assembly, thereby establishing grounds for sanctioning new types of trade secret infringement.
- Intelligent trade secret infringement, from technology-leak broker to hacking, is blocked at the source.
Grounds for punishing an act of arranging a job change of key personnel with the intent to leak trade secrets and an act of extracting trade secrets through hacking have been established.
According to MOIP, the amendment to the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act passed the National Assembly plenary session (August 20), to sanction acts of the introduction, brokerage or inducement of trade secret infringement, to clarify ‘hacking’ as a method of misappropriating trade secrets, and to punish an act of using or disclosing to a third party a trade secret acquired improperly.
In the process of technology leak, a method of luring away a company’s key personnel to competitors has been frequently used, and there have been cases where placement brokers posing as headhunters actively involved themselves in the leakage of trade secrets.
However, since the legal framework was insufficient to directly sanction job brokerage activities and it was also difficult to apply the charges of instigation or aiding and abetting under the Criminal Act, there was limitations, such as punishing an act of unregistered or unauthorized job placement under the Employment Security Act (Suwon District Court 2021GoDan 2363 decision, Suwon District Court 2021 No 7822 decision), rather than an act related to trade secret leakage.
This amendment defines acts of introduction, brokerage or inducement of trade secret infringement as a new type of trade secret infringement. Accordingly, not only civil remedies, such as injunctions and damages, but also whistleblower rewards and criminal punishment regulations can now be applied to brokers who arrange job transfers for executives and employees on the premise of leaking trade secrets.
Since the current legislation focuses on conventional ways of obtaining trade secrets, such as stealing, cheating or threatening, etc., it has been pointed out that new types of trade secret infringement through cyberattacks, such as hacking, must be more clearly regulated.
This amendment clearly defines ‘hacking’ as an illegal means of acquiring trade secrets. Accordingly, the law explicitly stipulates that acquiring another party’s trade secrets through hacking constitutes an infringement of trade secrets and is subject to criminal punishment.
Previously, even in the case where a person acquiring trade secrets by improper means used them or disclosed them to third parties, it had to be separately proven that there was an intent to obtain an unfair benefit or to cause harm to the trade secret holder. However, through this amendment, a legal basis has been established for punishing a person who acquires trade secrets by improper means and then uses them or discloses or leaks them, even without proving a separate wrongful intent.
The Minister of MOIP said, “recently, trade secret infringement has become increasingly sophisticated and advanced by systematically arranging job changs of key personnel or stealing information through hacking and then using and distributing it…Through this amendment, we expect that it enables a tighter regulatory framework covering the entire process of technology leaks, from the preparation of trade secret infringement to its acquisition, use and disclosure.”
3. Korea Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board (IPTAB) immediately issues the recorded files after the oral hearing, to enhance user convenience.
The recorded files of the oral hearing can now be issued directly on site.
IPTAB of MOIP announced that starting from August 24, 2026, a service has been implemented to immediately issue the oral hearing recorded files on site, to enhance the convenience for the parties and expedite the trial proceedings.
IPTAB has issued the recorded files to the parties so that they can reconfirm the content and issues of oral hearing statements and use them for writing arguments, etc. However, previously, since there was no procedure to request the recorded files on site, it took more and a week for the parties or their representatives to get the recorded files after the oral hearings.
So, IPTAB has introduced the procedure to immediately issue the recorded files right after the oral hearing ends. If the parties or their representatives submit a request for the recorded files and pay a prescribed fee, they receive the recorded files on a storage device on site.
Since this system improvement allows for a faster review of the content of the oral hearings, it is expected to enhance the parties’ procedural response capabilities and to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the trial procedures. Notably, since the recorded files can be secured immediately after the oral hearing, the time needed to summarize the key issues and make subsequent written documents is considered to be significantly reduced.
The President of IPTAB said, “the service of issuing the recorded files of the oral hearings on site is the system to enable the parties and their representatives to prepare trial procedures more promptly…we will continue to provide convenient and efficient trial services by fully reflecting the opinions from trial users.”
4. The partial amendment to the Korean Patent Act passed the National Assembly’s plenary session on August 20, 2026.
-It becomes easier to revive a patent that was lost due to a missed patent fee.
Patents that became due to failure to pay fees on time will now be easier to restore.
According to MOIP, the partial amendment to the Patent Act with this content passed the National Assembly’s plenary session (August 20). The amendments to the Utility Model Act and the Design Act with the same intent were also passed.
This amendment was prepared to solve the problem where individuals and small and medium companies that struggle with patent management due to a lack of financial resources and personnel lose their valuable rights due to simple mistakes.
The core of the amendment is significantly lowering the barrier to restoring rights when patent fees are unpaid.
Previously, rights could be restored only if a ‘justifiable reason’, such as COVID-19 quarantine or system error, was proven. However, with this amendment, in cases of unintentional non-compliance (such as simple mistake or oversight), rights can be reinstated upon payment of an additional fee (the appropriate amount will be determined by the Prime Minister’s Decree in the future).
This amendment is expected to significantly reduce the loss of rights for individuals and small and medium companies that are vulnerable to deadline management.
Over the last 4 years (April 2022~December 2025), 85% of all patent restoration requests were from individuals and small and medium companies, and only 15.6% of the total requests for patent restoration were granted restoration by justifiable reasons. However, in the future, it is expected that rights will be restored in most cases since they will likely quality as unintentional. In addition, with the establishment of a rights recovery system to meet international standards (such as the US and Japan), the credibility of the Korean patent system is also expected to increase.
This amendment is the first bill that reflects some of the provisions required for joining the patent law treaty (PLT) to help Korean companies in expanding internationally. Starting with this amendment to ease the requirements for the restoration of rights, MOIP plans to sequentially propose deregulation bills required for joining the patent law treaty (PLT) in the second half of this year.
Regarding the patent procedures, MOIP will step-by-step legislate the remaining tasks, such as introducing a system to restore priority even if the priority claim period (12 months) is missed. It also plans to join the patent law treaty (PLT) by 2029 by revising subordinate statutes and reorganizing information systems, etc.
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