무제 문서
 
 
Home > Material Room > News Letter
 
 

Newsletter/February 26, 1998 No.37

We have the pleasure of infoming you that Mr.Kwan Ho Shin has been elected to the president of KPAA(Korean Patent Attorney Association) at plenary session of the KPAA, February 21.

The KIPO Recommends to Set Up the Intellectual Property Office

The KIPO will recommended the government to establish an Intellectual Property Office(IP Office) for the integrated management of the IP field.
According to government officials, the KIPO planned to propose the presidential takeover committee of the new elected president KIM DJ to establish the IP office for the unified management of IP rights such as industrial property rights, copyrights, and new intellectual property rights, for example, computer software, and new seeds for plants.
Currently, the IP business is divided in the KIPO for industrial property, the Ministry of Culture and Physical Education for copyrights, the Ministry of Trade and Industry for IC chip design, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry for the seeds of plants.
As a result, the overlapping of IP businesses between related authorities is inevitable, thus the administration efficiency is lowered.
The KIPO is expected to propose the establishment of the IP office to manage all IP business issues such as industrial property, copyrights and computer programs, etc.

The Duration of the Patent Examination Shows its First Decline

The duration of patent examinations, which had been on the increase recently started to decrease from the end of last year.
The KIPO said that the average examination duration of patents in December, 1997 was 36 months, and it was shortened by two months in comparison with last June.
The average number of cases handled by an examiner for the year increased to 361 cases from 343 cases in l996.
The KIPO attributes the reduction of the examination duration to the continuous reinforcement of examiners and the computerization of prior art search.
The KIPO will employ 200 people this year in order to reduce the examination duration to 30 months by the end of this year.

The Number of IP Applications was Reduced Last Year

The number of IP applications such as patents, utility models, trademarks and designs, which had increased by more than ten percent, was reduced to 254,092 in the last year, a reduction of 7.3 percent from 274, 069 last year.
The utility model applications in the last year were around 45,700, sharply reduced 33.5 percent from that of 1996.
In the case of designs, 25,800 applications were processed dropping 4.3 percent from last year.
The drastic decline of IP applications last year was mainly due to the reduction of auto-related utility model applications by domestic auto companies.
An KIPO official said that the drop of IP applications were caused by the reduction of the defence applications of domestic companies.

The Patent Court Is Expected to be An Electronic Court

The electronic court system using remote video systems and computer networks will be adopted by the patent court from the year 2000.
The Supreme Court plans to adopt the electronic trial system for the patent court in the year 2000.
Moreover the Supreme Court will expand to apply the electronic court system to the civil and criminal courts.
According to this plan, parties in a patent suit will be able to complete the procedure at the Seoul District Court through the remote video trial system without attending the patent court i
 
 
 
 
무제 문서