1. KIPO held an information session on filing an international application for small and medium companies and venture companies
The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) held an information session on filing international applications for small and medium companies and general public, to improve the awareness of filing and protecting applications for intellectual property (IP) rights in foreign countries.
In this session, a company’s working staff in charge of foreign IP rights provided the relevant procedures and information, to widen the understanding of international applications and make it possible to obtain foreign IP rights and cope with any disputes thereof.
Major contents included: ▲ understanding of an international application according to the PCT system and strategies to use the same ▲ strategies to protect a global brand through an international application according to the Madrid system, ▲ major countries’ strategies to file an international application according to the Hague system ▲ know-how to prevent dispute of a foreign IP right and to cope with the same, etc. The session included expert’s statements on certain topics and a Q/A period.
Since the session included the strategies regarding the filing of international patent, trademark and design applications and how to cope with any disputes regarding foreign IP rights rather than simply explaining the relevant systems, it was expected to be substantially more helpful to small, medium and venture companies that have had difficulties in filing applications for foreign IP rights, obtaining the foreign IP rights and coping with any disputes related to the rights because of their lack of understanding and information of the international applications for IP rights.
2. KIPO provides patent analysis results for medical device industrial development
KIPO published the patent application trends and technical development progression over the last ten (10) years, to discover a promising industry in the medical device field.
To this end, medical devices were divided into 14 medium classifications and 80 small classifications. A ‘medical device-patent classification connection table’ was prepared by matching each classification to the International Patent Classification (IPC) in 1:1.
The trends of filing and registering patent applications in each field for the last ten (10) years (2007~2016) were analyzed to show the technical development trends in the medical device field at a glance.
Further, since the patent growing progressions were analyzed and provided by applying the analytic techniques, such as the technical growth phase and the short and long term growth rates, to be used as the materials to predict the future technological development possibility.
By technical fields, in the medium classifications, the highest increase was shown in the applications in the biometry field including a diversity of measuring devices, such as an electrocardiograph, electroencephalograph and electromyography.
In the small classifications, the highest increase was shown for a short and long term in the applications in the bio-diagnostic field including a body component measuring instrument and a wearable measuring instrument, due to an increase in the applications filed by universities and public research institutes.
3. Trends of patent applications related to the ultra high definition (UHD) broadcasting
As a result of KIPO’s analysis of the UHD broadcasting-related patent applications, Korean companies and research institutes took the lead in the technology development in the image compression and transmission field as the core technology.
UHD is the technology to provide more clear and realistic images by raising resolution by four (4) times than the previous full HD. Among the UHD-related standards, the standardization discussion of the North American Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC 3.0), which was adopted in the Republic of Korea, was started in 2013 and finished in 2015.
The number of the UHD broadcasting-related patent applications increased a lot, almost 130%, from 104 in 2012, before the standardization discussion started, to 239 in 2013 when the standardization discussion started. After reaching the peak with 267 in 2014 when the standardization discussion was most active, the number of the relevant applications sharply decreased. So, the filing of these applications is considered as progressing according to the standardization discussion.
Upon seeing the trends of the applicants of the UHD broadcasting-related applications, Korean applicants held about 88% of the total of the applications. Specifically, since Korean companies and research institutes held about 80% thereof, they were considered as having an important role in realizing the UHD original airing.
4. The number of rollable display-related patent applications has rapidly increased
It is not far from the time where a TV screen or a smart phone screen is rolled up to be easily carried.
According to KIPO, the number of the patent applications related to a ‘rollable display’ with a screen that can be rolled up like a scroll has significantly increased, among the patent applications related to a display device.
A rollable display is a display device using a flexible plastic board instead of a hard glass board. Since the rollable display can be rolled up like a scroll and, if necessary, it can be unfolded for use, its applicable range is expected to greatly expand in the future.
As it meets such an expectation, the number of the rollable display-related patent applications was only 2 in 2013 but greatly increased to 15 in 2014 and 32 in 2016.
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