1. Korean Intellectual Property Tribunal (KIPT) opens for the first time an oral trial video
- A video oral trial system has been opened. A video exhibition case of the oral trial system is operated in the trademark field and it will be expanded into the design and patent fields.
On the morning of April 24, 2014, KIPT opened its first ‘video oral trial system’ which connects the Daejeon government office and the Seoul office of KIPO, to hold the first video oral trial.
Previously, if the parties directly involved in an oral trial live in the capital area, they would have to travel to Daejeon or the judgment department and supportive personnel would need to travel to Seoul. However, the opening of the video oral trial system has considerably reduced these inconveniences.
The video oral trial system was carried forward to reduce the inconveniences of the parties directly involved in a trial and to meet governmental policies called ‘the creation of demander-customized services”. This video oral trial system was decided to be introduced in June 2013 and has been opened at this time through a preparation process of about ten (10) months.
The video oral trial system substantially enables real-time questions and answers without any big differences from the conventional face-to-face oral trial. The system also utilizes high-tech equipment such as data viewer (visual presenter), TV monitor, etc., to show the data or articles of evidence prepared by the directly involved parties to explain the issues of a case.
2. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was concluded with a Chinese company, Alibaba Group, to protect the online intellectual property (IP) rights
- Korea Intellectual Property Protection Association (KIPPA) and Alibaba Group agreed to cooperate in the work to support settlement of the counterfeit product problems of Korean companies.
The Korea Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) announced that on April 23, 2014, KIPPA, a KIPO-affiliated organization, concluded the MOU with the Alibaba Group in Hangzhou, China. Alibaba Group is the largest Chinese e-commerce business company (executive chairman: Ma Yun). The MOU was concluded to support the solution of counterfeit Korean companies’ products, which are distributed in China through open markets.
The number of the cases in which the products infringing the IP right(s) were distributed in the open markets operated by Alibaba Group reached about 87,000,000 per year (based on the record of 2012). Last year, IP-DESK, an abroad IP center, picked up about 1,000 cases of distributing counterfeits through the investigation of infringement to some Korean companies’ products. Because of this, Korean companies’ damages have frequently occurred in China.
The major cooperative matters of this MOU are:
to carry forward the exchange of mutual services for the IP protection between the two,
to prepare the cooverative procedures to facilitate the IP protection work, and
to carry forward the IP joint promotion campaigns, etc.
3. KIPO and the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) broaden a way of transferring a national defensive technology to a private company
As the patent technology of ADD is published in IP-Market, an IP transaction system operated by KIPO, a door is open for a private company to possibly utilize to the cutting-edge technology of ADD.
The number of the patent applications filed by ADD during the latest three (3) years totaled 1,313, with a continuous increase. The number of the patents owned by ADD reached 2,017 as of the end of 2013. Among the patents owned by ADD, the number of the technologies being able to be transferred to and commercialized by companies has steadily increased, reaching 664 at the end of 2013.
Meanwhile, ADD conducted a technology transfer through a cyber technology transfer exchange of the civil-military cooperation development agency. However, since it was difficult for a private company to approach to it, most technology transfer contracts were made with the defense industry. When the ADD’s technology(ies) for transfer is published in the IP-Market where the patent technology transaction is made available, this difficulty is overcome and a private company is expected to more easily access the cutting-edge defense technology(ies).
4. KIPO published blue print of patent strategies including future promising technologies
According to KIPO, a final report of the blue print of the 2013 national patent strategies has been published. The blue print presents the future promising technologies selected in the four (4) industrial fields of industrial fusion, materials, energy and resources and environment and meteorology and the strategies to preoccupy the patents thereof.
This report was a second publication after the report on the ‘three (3) industrial fields (bio, robot and mobile communication) in 2012’ was published. This report has the more significant meaning in the blue print of the patent strategies on the fields: the industrial fusion connected to diverse industries, the materials supporting all industries, the energy and resources as the nation-based industries, and the environment and meteorology globally increasing concern.
The final report consists of a consolidated report and an IP strategy report by each of the four (4) industrial fields. The consolidated report includes:
- series of technologies based on Korean and foreign patent data by industrial fields,
- analysis of emergence/growth through macroscopic trend and valid patent analysis, etc., and
- results of finding a promising technology and strategies to secure a patent thereof.
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