1. A ceremony of a 55th Invention Day was held
-The ‘Gold Tower Order of Industrial Service Merit’ was given to Gyo-Won JIN, President of SK Hynix.
-The ‘Invention King of the Year’ was rewarded to In-Ju KIM, Team Leader of LG Display.
The ceremony of the ‘55th Invention Day’, hosted by KIPO and supervised by the Korea Invention Promotion Association, was held in grand ballroom of Seoul 63 Convention Center on June 24,
The ceremony of the Invention Day is a pan-national event which has been held every year since 1957, to boost an inventor’s morale and to inspire people’s invention consciousness through awards to inventors of merits.
In this ceremony opened with the subject: “Definite Changes of the Republic of Korea will be together with IP”, about 100 people including Prime Minister Se-Kyun JEONG and the heads of invention service-related organizations, inventors, etc. attended, 79 inventors of merit who contributed to the national industrial development were rewarded, and the award, ‘Invention King of the Year’, was given to the top innovative inventor.
For the safe ceremony, the scale of attendance was reduced to the minimum and COVID-19 prevention measures were thoroughly conducted. In addition to pre-disinfection and prevention, all attendees were subject to △ non-contact temperature check and disinfection through a quarantine cube and △ foothold stickers and designated seating system for the distancing between individuals (more than 2.5m).
For the ceremony, each attendee went through the admission process (no admission if temperature is 37.5℃ or higher): ① If a normal temperature is confirmed through a non-contact terminal to control access, an attendee goes through a quarantine cube where a sterilization smoke machine with harmless ingredients to humans operates (it takes about 10 seconds per person) → ② the attendee passing through the quarantine cube receives a preventive kit including a mask, vinyl gloves and attaches a sticker for security of access.
2.KIPO starts a ‘Natoinal Patent Bigdata Center’
-Patent analysis is fully used for establishing industrial policies and for planning R&D
On June 18, 2020, KIPO and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy opened the ‘National Patent Bigdata Center’ in the Korea Patent Strategy Development Institute (Korea Intellectual Property Center), to fully carry forward the discovery of promising technology and the establishment of promotion strategy thereof, based on patent analysis.
Through diversified analysis of about 450,000,000 patents in the world, it is possible to diagnose and predict the competitiveness and investment direction of a competing country or company and to derive our research and development (R&D) direction, investment direction, market entrance strategy, etc.
In this regard, KIPO established the National Patent Bigdata Center to scientifically and objectively improve the national industrial competitiveness based on the patent bigdata which is the repository of high-level technology information.
Through the National Patent Bigdata Center, KIPO has a plan to produce and provide the core information by industries and by technologies for the 17 new industries including AI, futuristic cars, etc.; the 10 major industries such as shipbuilding, chemistry, etc.; the monitoring and analysis of patent trends by industries with respect to the social issues close to the life of the people; promising technology discovery such as crisis signal detection, etc.
Following the 5 areas including display, bio•health, hydrogen industry, system semiconductor, and next-generation battery in 2019, this year KIPO provides the patent bigdata-based industrial innovation strategies, such as future promising technology, to the 5 new industrial areas including AI, IoT home appliance, new renewable energy, futuristic car and unmanned air vehicle.
In addition, through the patent analysis on the social issues, such as infectious diseases, weather changes, etc., KIPO suggests the technical solution plans on the social issues, such as the technology of deriving a candidate substance to develop COVID-19 medicines or vaccines or the technology of responding to a climate change, etc.
3.The procedures for patent official fee reduction for a midsize company has been greatly improved
- The official fees are automatically reduced without submitting a request for reduction or an evidence document.
On June 15, 2020, KIPO announced that it started operating a greatly improved official fee reduction system for midsize companies so that they can more easily get reduction with respect to the official fees for filing a patent application, a utility model application and a design application and the official fees for registration, etc.
At present, KIPO provides a 30% reduction benefit of the official fees for filing an application, the official fees for requesting an examination and the official fees for the first nine-year patent annuities for midsize companies.
Previously, to get the reduction in official fees, a midsize company had the hassle of receiving a document to prove that it was a midsize company, which was issued by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (Federation of Middle Market Enterprises of Korea) whenever it requested the reduction at every step of paying the official fees, such as the fees for filing an application, the fees for registration, etc.
To solve such an inconvenience that a midsize company experienced, KIPO prepared a plan to connect and use the database of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the midsize companies. Based on this database, KIPO staff directly confirms whether an applicant is a midsize company, to reduce the official fees.
According to the improvement of the system, even if a midsize company does not submit a separate evidence document or it does not request any reduction since it does not know the reduction system, it can automatically get the reduction benefits of the official fees. Therefore, time and cost required for issuance and submission of the evidence document are expected to be saved.
4.Directly file a trademark application yourself!
-You can file a trademark application by using a trademark application support service.
The number of applicants who directly file a trademark application, without appointing an agent (patent attorney) has increased.
KIPO provides many services to support an applicant to directly and easily file a trademark application and to get a trademark registered.
To preemptively respond to difficulties that an applicant experiences in the process of filing a trademark application, KIPO provides various services to support the filing of a trademark application. By the use of these services, everyone can directly file a trademark application.
The currently provided services to support the filing of a trademark application are the ‘search of names of goods’ in the patent information search service (www.kipris.or.kr) and the ‘automatic guidance of correct names of goods’ in the form program (electronic application software).
The ‘search of names of goods’ is the service for an applicant to search an accurate name of goods to be used by using a keyword and includes about 56,000 names of goods which are representative in each industry approved by KIPO.
In addition, for the applicants who have inquiries regarding new goods or the names of goods which cannot be found in the service, ‘search of names of goods’, “Q&A” (classification correction and question) is specially operated in the patent information search service (www.kipris.or.kr), where if a question is presented, an answer is given by email.
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