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Reasons for changing official fees from January 1, 2009 (161)

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KH

Post Date¡¡

2009-02-06

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1. Reasons for changing official fees from January 1, 2009

Official fees for a request for examination and a trial have increased from January 1, 2009, to reflect the associated costs and to enhance the efficiency of work.

Annual fees, however, decreased to reduce the monetary burden on patent and utility model right owners.

[Official Fees for Request for Substantial Examination]

(KRW) Prior to January 1, 2009 From January 1, 2009
Basic Fee Additional Fee Basic Fee Additional Fee
Patent 109,000 32,000 x
number of claims 130,000 40,000 x
number of claims
U. M. 55,000 14,000 x
number of claims 65,000 17,000 x
number of claims

[Official Fees for Request of Trial]

(KRW) Prior to January 1, 2009 From January 1, 2009
Basic Fee Additional Fee Basic Fee Additional Fee
Patent/
U. M. 100,000 11,000 x
number of claims 150,000 15,000 x
number of claims
Design 120,000 x number of designs 240,000 x number of designs
Trademark 120,000 x number of classes 240,000 x number of classes
Dismissal of Amendment 130,000 200,000

[Official Annual Fees]

(KRW) Prior to January 1, 2009 From January 1, 2009
Basic Fee Additional Fee Basic Fee Additional Fee
Patent
(1-3 years) 22,000 15,000 x
number of claims 15,000 13,000 x
number of claims
Patent
(4-6 years) 51,000 23,000 x
number of claims 40,000 22,000 x
number of claims
Patent
(7-9 years) 114,000 38,000 x
number of claims 100,000 38,000 x
number of claims
U. M
(1-3 years) 17,000 4,000 x
number of claims 12,000 4,000 x
number of claims
U. M
(4-6 years) 36,000 9,000 x
number of claims 25,000 9,000 x
number of claims
U. M
(7-9 years) 76,000 14,000 x
number of claims 60,000 14,000 x
number of claims

From the 10th year, the official annual fees did not change.


2. Korea-US Patent Prosecution Highway has been fully implemented beginning January 29, 2009

Korea-US Patent Prosecution Highway changed from its trial operation to its full implementation, expanding and providing cooperation between the two countries.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO; Commissioner: Jung-sik KOH) and the United States of Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO; Commissioner: John Doll) agreed to fully implement the ¡°Korea-US Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)¡± program which had been tentatively carried out for one year, beginning January 29, 2009. Accordingly, the two countries announced that they would strengthen their work cooperation in the Korea-US patent field.
These results are based on the mutual confidence between the two countries through the PPH trial program operation. ¡°The pilot project has demonstrated that the PPH provides real benefits to both the USPTO and KIPO¡¦ Implementation of PPH on a full time basis is an important step toward realizing work sharing globally.¡± said John Doll, expressing the great expectation of the work sharing between the two countries.
In addition to the full operation of the PPH, KIPO and USPTO will continuously promote the cooperative projects in the Korea-US patent field, based on the general patent cooperation memorandum of understanding which was concluded in September, 2008. Among the cooperative projects, the project to participate KIPO examiners in a USPTO education program and the project to exchange patent examiners between the two countries will be operated in the first half of this year, and the project regarding strategic handling of application for rapid examination (SHARE) will be operated in the later half of this year.


3. Korean Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI; President: Mun-kee CHOI) earned 10 billion Korea Won in an international patent trial, last year

Last year, ETRI made a profit of 10 billion Korea Won on royalties in an international patent trial concerning mobile communication. Further, since ETRI has a better chance of wining pending trials, it expects profits of about 500 billion Korea Won.
The Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE) and ETRI filed trials for intellectual property infringement and trials for claiming damages with respect to 3 standard patents relating to the technology of wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) and 7 international patents relating to the technology of reducing power consumption in the third-generation mobile communication terminal. MKE and ETRI won these trials against one company, making the royalty profits of 10 billion Korea Won.
Noticing that the other 6 companies in addition to the aforementioned company illegally use the 7 patents relating to the mobile communication (terminal), ETRI filed a number of patent trials which are now pending. If ETRI wins all of these trials, it is expected that ETRI will gain royalties of 500+ billion Korea Won.
Last year, ETRI filed the trials against Sony Ericsson of Europe, Kyocera of Japan and HTC of Taiwan, among others, through ¡®SPH America¡¯ which is an patent trial agency.
Further, ETRI sold 100 dormant patents to an US company at the end of December, last year. ETRI had concluded patent licensing agreements with respect to 97 patents relating to mobile communication terminals at 1.5 billion Korea Won in 2004. ETRI was a Korean public research institute which for the first time concluded the patent licensing agreements at 3.6 billion Korea Won with a specialized foreign licensing company in 2005. ETRI held a large number of accumulated patents (about 12,000). Among these patents, 109 were standard patents with the royalties reaching about 4.66 billion Korea Won.
However, as the budget for maintaining and registering a patent came close to about 10 billion Korea Won, ETRI abandoned 589 patents through the system of abandoning patent maintenance and withdrew 621 applications over the last 3 years. When a patent is not used for 3 years after a research project is completed, the abandonment of the patent is operated through a patent portfolio audit regarding the patent held by its owner.


4. KIPO will introduce a preferential examination system for a trademark application

From April, 2009, the preferential examination system for a trademark application will be introduced. Under the preferential examination system, a trademark application can be examined at the time an applicant desires. Further, the intervening right system is provided. Under the intervening right system, even though a trademark right is invalidated after a dispute trial, an applicant/owner of the invalidated trademark right is allowed to use the right continuously.
As the improvements, KIPO decided to introduce the preferential examination system into the existing examination system under which a trademark application is indiscriminately examined in the order of filing the application. The preferential examination system is applied to a case where a trademark is in use or a dispute occurs. When an applicant files a request for preferential examination of a trademark application, the trademark application undergoes examination within 2 months, which is faster by 5 months or more than the 7 months which is the general examination period. For reasonable operation of the preferential examination system for a trademark application, KIPO fixed the fee for requesting the preferential examination at 160,000 Korea Won, which is about 3 times the ordinary fee of filing a trademark application.
Further, a right protection system of a real user of a trademark right is provided. KIPO decided to introduce the intervening right system to complement the current trademark right system by the principle of registration. Even though a trademark is invalidated by a dispute occurred, if the trademark is evaluated as being widely well-known to the general public, the intervening right system allows an owner of a later registered trademark right to continuously use the trademark by a certain payment to an owner of a prior registered trademark right.
KIPO also will introduce the disclaimer ¡¡

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Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO; Commissioner: Jung-sik KOH) expands the prompt commercialization support to medium and small companies (162)

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The number of Madrid international trademark applications filed by the Republic of Korea decreased while that filed by the competing countries increased (160)
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