1. TM5-ID5 meeting in trademark and design fields was held in Jeju
The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) held a TM5-ID5 mid-term meeting on July 22~25 in Jeju. TM5 (Trade Mark 5) includes the five (5) advanced intellectual property (IP) offices in the trademark field (Republic of Korea, US, Europe, Japan and China). ID5 (Industrial Design 5) includes the five (5) advanced intellectual property offices in the design field (Republic of Korea, US, Europe, Japan and China).
Before its annual meeting held at the end of the year, the TM5-ID5 mid-term meeting is to check the progress situation of the cooperative project carried forward by each of the five (5) intellectual property offices which hold more than 70% of the whole world’s trademark and design applications.
This mid-term meeting is also to discuss the global trends and major policy directions in the trademark and design fields, by newly finding and proposing new projects.
In the ID5 meeting, the subjects included ‘comparative study on design registration requirements (Korea)’ comparing and analyzing the design protection system of each country and ‘analysis on basic economic elements and government office policies influencing the filing of design applications (Europe)’.
Further, in this mid-term meeting, a Joint Statement suggested by KIPO, which includes a new cooperative vision among the five (5) advanced intellectual property offices, to effectively protect a new innovative trademark or design which appears in the 4th industrial revolution era in addition to the cooperative tasks which have currently progressed.
2. A patent certificate is saved in my mobile phone
- An issuing system of a registration certificate has been innovated for 70 years.
According to KIPO, an electronic registration certificate issuing service starts from July this year, replacing the previous paper registration certificate, to improve the convenience of people.
Previously, since a registration certificate was issued in paper, when a right was transferred or a registration certificate was lost or damaged, there was an inconvenience in that a request for a reissue of the registration certificate, a request form and certain fees were required.
To solve such an inconvenience, KIPO provided an electronic registration certificate which is able to be easily saved in a mobile phone, to be printed anytime that it needs.
Since an electronic registration certificate includes a QR code for real-time visibility into content of a right, when a general person scans the QR code by using a smart phone, etc., the user can easily view, always in real-time, the information of an owner of a particular right, the payment state of annual registration fees, the legal status of relationship of the right, etc.
3. Korea-Russia IP Offices agreed to jointly deal with the 4th industrial revolution
- During the Korea-Russia summit meeting period, the two countries signed a MOU for patent cooperation in Moscow.
The MOU includes cooperative plans for the two countries to support the innovation and growth of the 4th industrial revolution era in the IP field, such as the protection of the 4th industrial revolution new technology-related IP rights, the patent administrative application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, the filing of a 3D design application, etc.
Especially, as the MOU was signed locally during the summit meeting with Russia and the relevant matters were reflected in the joint statement of the summits of the two countries, the roles in the IP fields were expected to be strengthened in establishing the future-oriented cooperative relationships of the two countries.
In this meeting, the commissioners of the two IP offices exchanged their opinions about patent examination, information cooperative plans, etc. and agreed to conclude a MOU to operate the patent prosecution highway (PPH) between the two countries within this year. When the Korea-Eurasia PPH is operated, it enables faster patent registration in eight (8) commonwealth of independent states (CIS) including Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, etc., for a Korean company by using an examination result of KIPO.
4. The number of applications for eco-friendly trademarks has steadily increased
As the interest in environment has increased, the number of applications for trademarks claiming to support ‘eco-friendly’, such as ‘eco’, ‘green’, etc., in a trademark also steadily increased.
According to KIPO, about annual average 1,200 ‘eco-friendly’-related trademark applications were filed for about the last ten (10) years, showing a steady interest.
The products for which the most ‘eco-friendly’-related trademark applications were filed in 2017 were cosmetics (79 applications), followed by detergents (50), toothpastes (48) and shampoos (47), etc.
Considering that the top ten (10) products in the number of the applications were related to skin, like beauty, sanitation, etc., the interest in the clean and pure environments is regarded to expand to the eco-friendly products.
The top ten (10) product list (in 2017) are cosmetics, detergents, toothpastes, shampoos, internet shopping mall businesses, soaps for human body, import and export agency services, telemarketing brokerage services by telecommunication?, wet wipes, and softeners
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