1. KIPO will strongly deal with counterfeit product distribution through the people and the government
- A workshop entitled a ‘council to prevent distribution of counterfeit products’ was held where the trademark holding companies, on-line businessmen and KIPO jointly attend.
The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) held the workshop for the council to prevent the distribution of counterfeit products on October 27 and 28, 2016.
This council started with the government agencies including KIPO and 44 private companies in 2014, to effectively deal with the distribution of counterfeit products which are increasing in online distribution every year. This council was greatly expanded with 65 agencies attending this year.
In the workshop, the following issues were discussed: ▲KIPO’s policy to control counterfeit products ▲practical strategies to protect a company’s trademark right and to cope with infringement ▲plan to strengthen a specific cooperation to eradicate IP false indication and ▲policy proposal to eradicate the distribution of counterfeit products, etc. Further, activities to improve people’s recognition were performed through education and public relations among the members were held, to prevent the distribution of counterfeit products.
According to the Chief of the Intellectual Property Protection & International Cooperation Bureau of KIPO, this workshop had a great significance in that the relevant companies having different interests met together to jointly deal to eradicate the distribution of counterfeit products which had been getting more serious every day. The Chief also said that the council’s positive activities to prevent the distribution of counterfeit products would greatly contribute to the normalization of abnormal practices.
2. South Korea-Russia Intellectual Property Offices concluded MOU to exchange IP data
- KIPO and the Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent) have strengthened the IP administrative cooperation of new technology, artificial intelligence (AI), etc.
South Korea and Russia agreed to exchange IP publication data which the two countries have.
Mr. Donggyou CHOI, the Commissioner of KIPO, and Mr. Grigory Ivliev, Director General of Rospatent, met in Moscow on October 18 (local time) and signed the MOU to exchange the IP publication data.
Through this agreement, not only KIPO and Rospatent provide IP data on patents, trademark, designs, etc., to each other, but also private service companies freely use the exchanged data.
Due to the expansion of database, the examination efficiency of KIPO will increase and it is possible to provide IP services using Russia IP information in the private area.
3. The number of patent applications related to the mobile biometrics technology tends to increase
Since smart phones recognizing a fingerprint and face are now available, smart phones providing identity verification and mobile banking by iris recognition are also available. In line with this trend, patent applications related to mobile biometrics technology to be applied to smart phones, etc., have been steadily filed.
According to KIPO, the number of the patent applications for the mobile biometrics technology filed for the last five years sharply increased from 76 in 2011 to 178 in 2015.
Biometrics technology is applicable to most people, has a very low error rate, causes no physical change to an object to be measured and easily collects data. Considering these points, it is appropriate for an alternate technology of verification using a password and therefore the relevant applications are expected to increase.
Miniaturization of a sensor, improvement of accuracy, expansion in supplying smart phones and wearable devices, and spread of IoT-based services, such as FinTech and health care, etc., are expected to be major factors to grow the biometrics market.
4. The number of patent applications related to the fan-out wafer level package (FOWLP) technology
As the demand of electronic devices which are thinner, lighter and highly-advanced has increased, the FOWLP technology has been newly raised as a trend of miniaturization of a semiconductor package.
According to KIPO, the number of the FOWLP-related patent applications was a total of 177 during the last eight years (2007~2014). In 2014, the number of these patent applications was 66, close to about two times the 35 in 2013, and has shown a sharp increase. This is 10% of the total number of the FOWLP-related patent applications during the survey period.
By countries, 65 applications (37%) were filed by South Korea, 46 (26%) by the USA, 25 (14%) by Taiwan, 20 (11%) by Japan and 10 (6%) by Singapore.
Recently, the number of the relevant applications filed by the USA and Taiwan has greatly increased. This is considered as being heavily indebted to Intel, a US company newly rushing into a producing business on consignment of smart phone semiconductor chip, and TSMC, a Taiwanese company starting manufacturing core semiconductor parts for iPhone 7 which has been released as a smart phone of Apple.
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