1. KIPTAB held a first oral trial using a five-person committee
The Korea Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board (KIPTAB) under the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) opened a grand court room available to a five-judge committee together with a number of the directly concerned parties and held the first oral trial of the five-person committee on November 15, 2016.
Previously, KIPTAB have held oral trials in four court rooms located in Daejeon. However, since the space was small, even though the five-person committee was designated regarding major cases which included social issues or which needed the coordination of opinions among a number of the judgment departments, only a documentary examination could be performed and no oral trials were available.
Although there were many cases where a number of people requested a plurality of judgment (average 10 decisions) at the same time regarding one patent case related to the permission of medicine and medical supplies, it was difficult to proceed with an oral trial by combining these cases due to an insufficient space.
As the grand court room is opened, the five-person committee oral trials are expected to be active regarding cases among big, medium and small companies and converged technical cases which attract great social interest, making a more fair and accurate judgment.
2. KIPO and national police detectives held a workshop to control counterfeit goods
KIPO held the ‘workshop for the investigation cooperation of the special police squad of trademarks (SPST) under KIPO and the national police detectives in charge of IP’ on November 3 and 4, 2016 in ChoongNam, South Korea.
Since SPST was started in 2010, the workshop has operated annually at the level of control cooperation to effectively cope with the distribution of counterfeit goods which has increased every year. However, as electronic commerce has increased and therefore, the distribution of counterfeit goods has sharply increased through various ways such as overseas direct purchases and SNS, etc., the investigation cooperation between the two agencies has become more important.
In this workshop, about 80 people including SPST of KIPO, national policy IP detectives, Korea Intellectual Property Protection Agency persons attended to discuss ▲ KIPO’s regulation policy of counterfeit goods ▲ KIPO’s and the National Police Agency’s excellent cases to control counterfeit goods ▲ know-how to distinguish counterfeit goods ▲ policy proposal regarding the eradication of distribution of counterfeit goods. Further, through this workshop, activities to raise awareness were performed such as policy sharing, education, public relations among the related agencies.
3. A 17th Korean semiconductor design exhibition awards
KIPO held the 17th Korean semiconductor design exhibition awards on November 24, 2016 in Seoul, Korea.
The contest hosted by KIPO and jointly conducted by KIPO and the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association has been held every year since 2000, to discover excellent semiconductor design property and to spur the development of Korean semiconductor design technology through a semiconductor designer and a person of semiconductor merit.
This year’s contest proceeded by dividing into two sections: one contest exhibit for a chip design and algorithm design to compete the semiconductor design technology and the other contest exhibit for rewarding a person of merit to praise his/her contribution dedicated to the semiconductor industry development. The national universities, institutes and companies attended over the last seven months resulting in keen competition. As a result, a total of twelve teams were honored.
According to the judges’ evaluation, the work which was awarded the grand prize is a world-class creative technique which exhibits great marketability and a ripple effect and is an excellent work to lead the future auto industry. Further, it is expected to bring an effect of reducing the engineering cost (royalty) spent to overseas, by securing the function-stability process chip design with pure Korean technology.
4. Flooded with requests for IP cooperation from the Middle East countries
Since the requests for IP cooperation from the Middle East countries including the UAE, Iran, etc. to be initiated into Korean IP development experiences have increased, KIPO announced to further strengthen the IP cooperation with the Middle East area.
Mr. SungJonn PARK, the director of the Intellectual Property Protection & International Cooperation Bureau of KIPO, and Mr. Alireza kazemi, the vice-minister of the Ministry of Justice of Iran, had a high-level talks on November 14, 2016 in Teheran, Iran, to discuss a cooperative plan between the two countries to establish the Iran IP education system.
The Iran side hopes to get the education of IP lecturers and text development and to share Korean IP development experiments, etc., and KIPO plans to prepare a supportive method using WIPO Korea trust fund and KOICA funds, etc.
The UAE side indicates that the distribution of counterfeit goods has threatened the international trust of Dubai pursuing the business hub of the Middle East and North Africa areas and hopes to fully cooperate with South Korea in the IP protection and education fields. KIPO have already progressed diverse cooperation with the UAE, like Korean patent examination service on the behalf of the UAE, patent information system development, IP law and organization consultation, etc. Further, KIPO expands the cooperation to the IP protection enforcement field by concluding the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at this time.
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