무제 문서
 
 
Home > Material Room > News Letter
 
 

Newsletter/January 26, 1998 No.36

Plan To Shorten the Period of Patent and Utility Model Examination

The KIPO plans to reduce the duration of the examination for patents and utility models to 30 months from the present 36 months by the end of this year.
The KIPO announced that a reduction of the duration of the examination and trial period is urgent for the enforcement of industrial competitiveness under the IMF(International Monetary Fund) environment.
For this purpose, the KIPO has made this special counterplan to improve the productivity of patent administration.
According to this plan, the KIPO will implement a "10 percent overtime campaign" to reduce the duration of patent and utility model examinations to 30 months.
Also the KIPO will shorten the duration of the examination for trademarks and designs to 13 months and 10 months respectively from the present 15 months.
The process time for the civil service will be reduced to 4 - 5 days.

The KIPO Forwards the Plan for the Introduction of a Non-examination

System Again Although the KIPO pushed again for the non-examination system to be introduced in utility model law, which had been suspended with strong opposition from the IP concerned groups, the inventors strongly disagree with this move.
It is said that, the revised plan of the utility model law, the main content of which is the introduction of a pre-registration system, was presented to the Assembly through a cabinet meeting although the defects of the system showed out prominently.
The KPAA(Korean Patent Attorney Association) opposed the revised utility model law at the National Assembly.
In its opposition, the KPAA warned that the KIPO compulsively drove the introduction of the non-examination system, despite the opposition of inventors, companies and patent attorneys.
The KPAA insisted that the introduction of the non-examination system will harm the utility model rights, the invention promotion environment, and that the unnecessary resultant disputes will cause an economic burden to the applicants.

Judical Precedent: Infringement Case of The Trademark Right

The Civil Division of the Seoul District Court made a judgement that if the defendant removed the counterfeit trademark from the goods, selling the goods could be allowed.
In the trademark right infringement case of the Youngnam textile industry vs Kirin Co., the Court stated defendant must not make and not sell the counterfeit goods but selling goods already produced could be allowed if the trademarks were taken off.
The Court decided that even though the defendant imitated the registered trademark, the effect of the disposal of the counterfeit goods is likely to be immoderate in consideration of the purpose of the trademark law, which is the protection of the trademark right only.
Thus as the copied trademark could be removed without damaging the products, the defendant could sell the products after taking off the counterfeit trademark.

Technical Trade Imbalance: Red Figure Enlarged

In 1996, the total royalties paid to foreign companies reached 2,297 million dollars, which is nearly 20 times that of 1982.
This increase is mainly due to raised royalties and the increase in advanced technology.
In terms of industrial classification, outgoing royalties in electricity/electronics topped 109 million dollars(47.5%), followed by mechanics/metal engineering - 525 million dollars and chemical - 275 million dollars.
On the other hand, technical exports by domestic companies gave a poor return, thu
 
 
 
 
무제 문서