KLP IP Firm

The Supreme Court's Precedent has been published which states that the inventiveness of the patent already registered should not be judged in the trial for confirmation of the scope of right to define an application range of patent right. On March 20 th , 2014, the supreme court decision confirmed the original trial that decided against a demandant with respect to the confirmation suit of patent right scope, in which company “A” specialized in manufacturing a special equipment vehicle (SEV) filed a suit revoking the decision of the Intellectual Property Tribunal (IPT) that determined its designing of feed transportation vehicle is similar with Kim’s registration utility model. With respect to the claim raised by company “A”, in which “Kim’s utility model is considered as such patent that should be invalid due to the lack of the inventiveness, thus the scope of patent right as itself is not recognized”, the justice department decided as follows: “once a patent is regis...

- Application for patents and trademarks increased by 8% and 7%, respectively - Despite uncertain global economic conditions and financial crises throughout last year, Korean applications for intellectual property rights (IPRs) such as patents and trademarks increased last year, according to recent preliminary statistics. The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO, Commissioner Ho-won Kim) gathered preliminary statistics on IPR applications from 2012 and found that the total number of applications for patents, trademarks, and industrial designs filed in 2012 increased by about 8% to 400,815 from 371,116 in 2011. Although the uncertainty of the global economy is growing, companies remain committed to dominating new technologies and brands through future-oriented R&D investment, leading to an increase in Korean patent and trademark applications over the past year. By type, applications for patents increased year-on-year by 7.6% to 192,575, utility models by 5.2% to 12,467,...

Korea and China to open a Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) - □ In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the first Korea-China intellectual property (IP) heads meeting in November 1992, cooperation on IP between the two countries will be largely expanded. o (Patent Prosecution Highway) Commissioner Lee Soo-won of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Commissioner TIAN Lipu of the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China (SIPO) at the 17th Korea-China heads meeting held in Beijing on November 2 (Wed) to open a Korea-China Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) and Patent Cooperation Treaty - Patent Prosecution Highway (PCT-PPH) starting 1 March 2012. - Commissioner Lee said, “There were 390,000 patent applications filed in China in 2010 (about 340,000 more than Japan) ranking it second in the world among patent filing countries. As such, the Chinese market has become increasingly important in terms o...

In Korea, medical procedure can not be patented. One of the requirements of patentability is industiral applicability. Medical procedures can't be patented in Korea because they are deemed to lack industrial applicability. Only medical instruments and supplies pertaining to surgery, treatment and diagnosis are patentable.

- Trademark applications increased by 11.9 percent year-on-year - □ Application Trends  A total of 91,225 IP applications were submitted during the second quarter of 2011, recording an increase of 4.8 percent year-on-year. - By type of rights, patents increased by 4.5 percent and trademarks by 11.9 percent, while designs decreased by 4.2 percent. ※ Utility models are continuously decreasing due to the pre-registration system and the discontinuation of the dual application system (▽ 9.6 percent).  By nationality, Korean and foreign applicants rose by 4.9 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively. - As for patents, Korean and foreign applicants rose by 4.4 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively. - By region, Ulsan recorded the highest rate of increase at 72.2 percent followed by Chungnam at 19.2 percent. - By countries of origin, Sweden increased by 24.6 percent and China recorded an increase of 19.4 percent.  By applicant, conglomerates and SMEs (small and medium enterprises)...

Whenever an examiner refuses an application, the applicant can simply request a reexamination after amending the description or drawing(s) . This process is permitted under the revised Patent Act. Previously, if an application was refused after examination, an applicant had to appeal the examiner's decision of refusal and amend the description or drawing(s) for examination before a trial. On the other hand, according to the revised Patent Act, an applicant does not need to appeal but simply request reexamination with amendment. Flow chart of a request for reexamination (application filed after July 1, 2009) ①Reasons for refusal from before the date of giving notice of the first refusal, but were not mentioned ②Reasons for refusal which were created by the amendments made after giving notice of refusal, but were not mentioned ③Reasons for refusal mentioned in previous notice of refusal Flow chart of a reexamination before a trial (for applications filed before June 30, 2009, and a...

Flow chart of an accelerated examination According to Article 61 of the Patent Act, the Commissioner of KIPO may have a particular category of patent applications examined ahead of the others. KIPO's regulation concerning the procedure for handling requests for accelerated examination provides that applications eligible for such expedited examination are limited to the following categories: (1) in case it is considered that an invention has been commercially worked by a person who is not the applicant, after his application has been laid-open; (2) in case the application is one of the kinds of applications stipulated in the Presidential decree and regarded as urgent (i) it relates to goods for defense industry and processes for the preparation thereof, as defined in the Special Measures Act Relating to Defense Industry (ii) it relates to facilities for the prevention of environmental pollution or a process thereof (iii) it is directly involved in the promotion of export as evidenc...