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The Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) which is a subsidiary institute of the Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials (KIMM) has developed a first technology for continuously manufacturing magnesium in the world (146)

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KH

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2008-06-16

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1. The Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) which is a subsidiary institute of the Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials (KIMM) has developed a first technology for continuously manufacturing magnesium in the world

Korean technicians have developed the technology for continuously manufacturing high alloy-based magnesium sheet, to improve the fuel efficiency of an automobile and further significantly reduce the weight of an electric/electronic product.

On May 21, 2008, it is reported that the team headed by Dr. Bongsun YOU of KIMS has developed the first ¡®technology of horizontally continuously casting magnesium-alloy sheet¡¯ in the world. Before this technology was developed, it was difficult to continuously manufacture a high alloy-based magnesium-alloy sheet by using conventional technology.

As for metal sheets needed in the automobile and electric/electronic industries, a metal sheet of 5mm or less in thickness is continuously manufactured by the casting method using twin rolls, thereby reducing the metal sheet manufacturing cost. However, this method cannot be applied to a high alloy based metal of high strength.

In major automobile advanced countries, governmental research and development are actively performed to increase the application rate of magnesium-alloy which is the lightest material. In the U.S.A., the R&D program is in process to achieve the reduction of 33% in weight by applying the magnesium-alloy of 160kg (which is 12.3% of the total weight) per automobile and this program will be kept until 2020.


2. Display industry secures first place in world ranking by giving priority to a source technology

An export value of 100,000,000,000 US Dollars with the world market share of 45% is the goals which the Korean display industry intends to achieve by 2017, ten years from now. For this end, the Government, industry, university and research have decided to take the initiative in the next-generation display market following the LCD/PDP market in which the Korean companies have dominated the world, and to concentrate the national-level efforts upon securing the core technologies in the fields of equipment and component materials which are the bases of the industrial competitiveness.

The Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE) and the Korea Display Industry Association (KDIA) had a ¡®briefing session of display industry development Strategy and a great meeting for the achievement of vision¡¯ in the Marriot Hotel in Seoul on May 15, 2008. In the briefing session and the meeting, the researchers in numerous research institutes, such as Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Korea Electronics Technology Institute and other institutes, and the representatives in the major industries, such as Samsung, LG and other companies, attended and MKE and KDIA announced the long-term development plans.

The Ten-Year Development Plan is a strategy to preoccupy future markets. The plan is to first intensively strengthen the cost competitiveness in the leading LCD/PDP panel industries. Simultaneously, the plan is to concentrate every effort on development of the next-generation display source technology, such as an active matrix (AM) organic light-emitting diode (OLED)/ flexible display and the like.

For this purpose, it has been decided to promote the joint R&D project of the AM OLED supply and demand companies with the industry, university and research and to establish a nongovernmental joint R&D center of an advanced country type in the field of flexible displays. Specifically, the strategic point is to enhance the technical competitiveness in the equipment/component material industries to the international level. It has been decided to improve the localization rates of the equipment/component materials which are respectively just about 40%, to 70% by 2017 and to raise the equipment company to be within the world¡¯s top ten. For this purpose, it has been also decided to localize five kinds of core materials, such as optical films and others, and to develop and commercialize six kinds of core equipments, such as digital exposure apparatus and others, through the joint R&D by the industry, university and research.


3. A request to register the extension of a patent term shall be made within three months after an item is licensed

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO; Commissioner: Sangwoo JUN) notifies that the extension of a patent term related to a medical product shall be requested within three months after the item is licensed.

In the program for patent practical services related to medical supplies, which was arranged by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) and held on May 14, 2008, an examiner of KIPO, Mr. Jaejung LEE, presented the ¡®examination cases in general fields and medicine fields under the patent law system¡¯ and emphasized that the request for extending the patent term for a medical product should be made within three months after the item is licensed.

Mr. LEE also notified that an application to register the extension of a patent term shall be filed within three months from the date on which the item license is received from the Korea Food & Drug Administration (KFDA).

According to his explanation, since the notified regulations have been revised many times, there were many cases where drug manufactures would fail to know that the application to register the extension of the patent term shall be filed within three months after the item was licensed and therefore miss the time limit to file the application to register the patent term extension.

On that day, the medicine manufacturing-related people attending the program indicated that the cases for requesting the registration of a patent term extension at the early days have been still shown on the website of KIPO. In response, Mr. LEE explained that since some of the cases are in progress, it is necessary to check whether the application is determined or not and specifically to confirm the original register of patent registration.

He also said that it is impossible to file an application to register the extension of a patent term after six months before the patent term is expired.

The system for extending the patent term is to extend the patent term within the range of five years, considering the point that a patent right may not be substantially used due to clinic experiments for a long time after the patent right is registered.


4. When a patent and a trademark are registered in China, it prevents their counterfeits

According to a head of the KOTRA in the Chinese area, the KOTRA requested the Chinese authorities to control counterfeits to prevent the counterfeits from spreading in the industries in China. However, the Chinese authorities were unwilling to control the counterfeits because they worried that their control would affect the Chinese industrial development. Even though the Chinese authorities control counterfeits, those counterfeits disappear for some time and then are again distributed. Therefore, the control of the authorities is not basically the solution.

In China, the rule, ¡®first to file an application¡¯, is adopted. According to the head of the KOTRA in the Chinese area, many Chinese industries first register the trademarks or idea products in imitation of Korean popular trademarks or idea products.

In fact, one Korean bearing company ¡®A¡¯ did not file a trademark registration application because it did not have its cooperation in China. Recently, ¡®A¡¯ discovered a company manufacturing the counterfeits of their products. However, ¡®A¡¯ has no power to control the counterfeit company because they did not file the trademark application in China.

The head of the KOTRA in the Chinese area said, ¡°Big companies have their own sufficient manpower and funds. Thus, there are many cases where those big companies directly organize t ¡¡

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