Posts in Korea

The number of trademark applications being filed by foreign companies with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been growing steadily – and in China’s case rapidly – since 2013. In 2013, a total of 328,180 trademark applications were filed in the USPTO, of which 57,977 (17%) were filed by foreign applicants. In 2017, 451,009 trademark applications were filed with the USPTO and the total number filed by foreign-based applicants rose to 119,883 (26%)… It is important for U.S. companies to recognize that the increases in trademark filings in general and by foreign companies, in particular, signify future stiff competition in the marketplace and potentially serious threats to existing trademarks.

Effective December 1, 2018, electronic retrieval of priority documents between the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) will be managed via the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Digital Access Service (DAS), in accordance with the WIPO DAS agreement established on April 20, 2009. The certified copy requirement is considered satisfied when a foreign priority document is retrieved electronically via the WIPO DAS service during pendency of the U.S. application. There is no fee for this service and participation for a particular application is voluntary.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has published its annual World Intellectual Property Indicators. For the second consecutive year, the number of design applications filed worldwide continued to grow, with an estimated 963,100 applications filed in total globally. The 2016 growth rate was 10.4%, following 2015’s more modest growth rate of 2.3% and 2014’s 10.2% drop in applications. 90% of the growth in 2016 can be attributed to increased filings in China.

While the United States continues to do well overall, patent protection continues to be problematic. In 2017 the U.S. ranked 10th worldwide in terms of offering patent protection to innovators. This year, the U.S. fell out of the top 10, tumbling to a tie for 12th with Italy… With a decrease in the score relative to patent protection from 2017 to 2018, the United States joins a handful of other countries that are not thought of as being at all intellectual property friendly. Those countries having a weaker performance relative to patents in 2018 include the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, Columbia, Chile and Australia. See page 22 of the Chamber report.

On Monday, September 4th, a South Korean court denied a request made by San Diego, CA-based semiconductor developer Qualcomm Inc. to rescind a fine levied last December by the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) over alleged unfair business activities in patent licensing and chip sales. According to reports, the South Korean court decision keeps in place a $912 million in the latest blow to Qualcomm’s corporate intellectual property strategy.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has published its annual World Intellectual Property Indicators. The 2016 report dissects the macro trends associated with filing activity and registrations for 2015 in the following intellectual property areas: patents, trademarks, industrial designs, and plant varieties… The twenty-year era of growth in industrial design patent applications came to an abrupt end in 2014, with a substantial drop in applications filed by 10.2%. In 2015, these figures are back on the rise, with a 2.3% increase. The number of designs in applications also rose in 2015, with non-resident applicant designs being the primary catalyst for growth. China was the main contributor to the number of designs per application, providing half the global total.

Google tries to strike a “patent peace” with a new cross-licensing initiative for Android developers. The Federal Circuit is petitioned for review of a judgment in a patent case on the grounds that arbitration flouted public policy. A couple of Texas academic institutions square off in a patent battle over cancer treatments. Also, a House bill moves forward which would make the Register of Copyrights a Presidential appointee.

At this moment in history almost everything we thought we knew about global patent protection is being challenged. The U.S. is not the most patent friendly jurisdiction in the world, instead being tied for 10th with Hungary, which really puts into perspective the fall from grace patent rights are having in America… There is no doubt that the U.S. continues to take steps backwards due to variety of self- inflicted wounds. The omnipresent threats of more patent reform, a Supreme Court that has created unprecedented uncertainty surrounding what is patent eligible (see e.g., here, here and here), and a Patent Trial and Appeal Board that has been openly hostile to property owners (see e.g., here and here), allows harassment of certain patent owners over and over again, all the while failing in its mission to provide relief from patent trolls. Meanwhile, a number of countries around the world have taken positive steps forward on the patent front, including countries you might not ordinarily consider as patent friendly jurisdictions.

The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a case that could create venue limitations on patent infringement actions. A major Korean consumer tech firm files its first patent infringement suits it has ever filed in the U.S. Chinese courts overturn a ban on a major American-designed smartphone. President Trump taps Jared Kushner to lead a new innovation office within the White House. And Marvel wins a partial summary judgment in a copyright dispute relating to Iron Man and whether the company stole the familiar Iron Man suit from another comic book character.

The highest federal court in the United States declines to hear an appeal from tech giants on applying common sense to patent validity challenge proceedings. A group of pharmaceutical giants duke it out in a patent battle over a topical ointment for treating acne. The capital’s district court hears arguments in a case about compulsory copyright licenses. Also, President Trump signs a bill authorizing billions in funding for the nation’s space agency.

Broadcom Ltd. filed a series of six lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California alleging the infringement of a series of patents covering semiconductor technologies. The patent lawsuits target firms making and selling consumer audiovisual products or other articles which utilize system on a chip (SoC) semiconductors and similar processing equipment… Although most of the Broadcom suits assert multiple patents, there is only one patent asserted in each case: U.S. Patent No. 7,310,104, titled Graphics Display System with Anti-Flutter Filtering and Vertical Scaling Feature.

The fact that 36.7 percent of all patent cases filed in E.D. Tex. seems to be an exceptionally high degree of concentration in case filings, but the Lex Machina report further notes that 95 percent of civil litigation filed in E.D. Tex. is assigned to Judge Rodney Gilstrap. Of the 4,533 patent cases filed in U.S. district courts during 2016, a total of 1,119 cases were assigned to Judge Gilstrap alone. That means that, not only are more than one-third of all patent cases confined to a single district court, nearly 25 percent of all patent cases filed in the U.S. are assigned to a single ju

A growing Chinese consumer electronics firm acquires a patent portfolio that makes them the fourth global producer of smartphones with the capacity to develop semiconductors in-house. The Supreme Court denies writ in a case, leaving in place a lower court’s decision on plaintiff standing in asserting foreign trademarks in the U.S. The Federal Circuit upholds patent invalidations levied against IP monetization firm Intellectual Ventures. Also, songwriter industry groups lobby the Copyright Office to adjust royalty fee structures in light of the growth of online streaming media.

65 years ago today, American chemical researcher Allene Jeanes was issued a patent for a polysaccharide innovation which had major implications for the U.S. military, helping to save the lives of soldiers injured on the front lines of the Korean War… If this were the only contribution made by Jeanes to the body of chemical science and engineering knowledge, that might well have been enough to inclusion in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. However, Jeanes is also the pioneer behind another chemical innovation involving polysaccharides, discovering an emulsifier and food stabilizer — Xanthan Gum — which is found in the ingredient list of a great deal of processed foods available in grocery stores today.

Kylie Minogue reports victory in a trademark opposition filed against Kylie Jenner, but the electronic records of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office are cause for confusion. Also, the estate of Dr. Seuss supports its copyright infringement claims against a New York City playwright and all 12 districts of the Federal Reserve System seek invalidation of two patents on electronic fraud-proof payment systems, plus Netflix, Beyoncé and our weekly updates on what is happening on Capitol Hill and on Wall Street.