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Title

The number of Chinese trademarks to be filed in Korea increases in the era of the Korea-China Free Trade Agreement (FTA) (News Letter No. 316)

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KH

Post Date¡¡

2015-07-16

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1. The number of Chinese trademarks to be filed in Korea increases in the era of the Korea-China Free Trade Agreement (FTA)

- Chinese trademarks are generally used for electronic devices, game literary works, clothes, footwear, cosmetics, etc.

Before the Korea-China FTA comes in effect, the number of Korean trademark applications filed by Chinese has greatly increased.

According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the number of Korean trademark applications filed by Chinese applicants for the last five (5) years increased by more than twice, from 1,246 in 2010 to 2,622 in 2014.

Chinese applicants can file their trademark applications with KIPO in two (2) ways of: directly filing the applications with KIPO and filing the applications through the Madrid international application system. The number of the trademark applications through the Madrid international application system increased from 672 in 2010 to 794 in 2014. The number of the trademark applications directly filed with KIPO rapidly increased by more than third, from 574 in 2010 to 1,828 in 2014.

Based on the Korean trademark applications filed by foreign applicants during the last five (5) years, 31,823 trademark applications were filed by US applicants, holding 27.3% of the total of the trademark applications by the foreign applicants, followed by Japan (17.2%), China (9.3%), Germany (7.6%) and France (5.5%).

What is remarkable is that the number of trademark applications filed by the Japanese has continuously decreased, whereas that by the Chinese has steadily increased. As of the end of April 2015, the Japanese filed 1,015 trademark applications and the Chinese filed 1,126 trademark applications, so that Japan keeping a 2nd place rank for some years has now given it over to China.


2. KIPO expands the provision of foreign IP information to the people

- Ten (10) kinds of foreign IP data of Japan, Europe, Mexico and the others have newly opened.

The information of foreign IP is expanded through the patent information use service (KIPRISPlus) of KIPO.

According to KIPO, it opened, to the public, a total of ten (10) kinds of foreign IP data in this year, including four (4) kinds of IP data of Japan, Europe, etc. newly provided in June.

These days, the demand for IP information of a local country has increased as a Korean company advances in a foreign country. Therefore, the importance of securing the foreign IP data increased leading to the development of a Korean IP information service industry.

Accordingly, KIPO has steadily carried forward the mutual exchange of foreign IP data, providing the public with the original data of seven (7) countries, through the cooperation with the Patent Offices of foreign countries.

This year, the newly provided data totals ten (10) different subjects, including five (5) kinds for Japanese IP data, three (3) for Mexico, one (1) for Europe and one (1) for the Philippines.

Specially, the ¡®arranged Japanese standardization data¡¯ enables one to understand the whole periodic information of Japanese patent information regarding an application, registration, trial, citation, etc. Therefor it is usable as basic data in analyzing a Japanese patent and preventing a dispute related to it.


3. For self- sustaining electric power, the number of microgrid-related patent applications has rapidly increased

- To develop a global market, using ESS competition

According to KIPO, the number of patent applications related to a microgrid enables electric self sufficiency by a small region, using new renewable energy and energy storage system, shows a high increase of annual average 32.7% for the last five (5) years, from 39 in 2010 to 121 in 2014.

Microgrids are classified as an independent microgrid that the produced power is independently self-sufficient for a small area and a system connected microgrid that is connected with an existing power system. Based on the patent applications filed during the last five (5) years, 117 patent applications were related to the independent type including the technology of maintaining voltage and frequency in spite of an intermittent energy source, such as wind power or sun light, 142 to the system connected microgrid including the technology of maintaining power quality according to the power system connection of distributed power, and 137 to the common technology applied to both types, including an energy storage system, a generator, a power semiconductor such as an inverter/converter. Therefore, most patent applications were related to the system connected microgrid.

However, based on the relevant patent applications filed during 2013 between 2014, 71 applications were for the independent type, 81 for the common technology and 63 for the system connected type, showing the clear increase of the applications related to the independent type and common technology. This is considered as resulting from high price competitiveness of the new renewable energy in an island area which power was supplied by diesel generation due to the high oil price for the last some years. Actually, since 2011 some companies have installed the independent microgrid test site where wind power and sun light are used as the energy source in Kasado in Jeollanam-do and Kapado in Jeju-do, the Republic of Korea, to lead the technological development.


4. KIPO held an advisory committee to open and use the IP information

- An opportunity was prepared to discuss policy directions of the opening and use of public data of KIPO

KIPO held the first ¡®advisory committee to open and use the IP information¡¯ in 2015. The experts in private companies, research institutions and patent attorney offices attended the committee, to reflect the requests of IP information service companies and final consumers in the process of determining the policy to open and use the IP information.

This committee is to listen to the voice from the field regarding ¡°IP information opening policy and service industrial activating plan¡± for any one to easily access and use the IP information and to build the IP service market infrastructure. Additionally, it is to share the successful cases of the private companies releasing products by using the IP information data provided by KIPO.

At present, KIPO provides thirty-two (32) Korean IP information data, including industrial property publications and information from filing an application for an intellectual property right to reaching the lapse thereof. As Korean companies¡¯ requests for the foreign IP information has increased, KIPO has provided the foreign IP information of seven (7) countries with major markets, including USA, Japan, China, Mexico, among the others. ¡¡

Prev¡¡

The number of applications filed for intellectual property (IP) rights during the second quarter of 2015 increased by 9.3%, compared with the same period in 2014 (News Letter No. 317)

Next¡¡

The Korea-Taiwan Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program started on July 1, 2015. (News Letter No. 315)
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