Posts Tagged: "kipo"

s one of the world’s most vibrant markets, the number of patents granted in South Korea by the Korean Industrial Property Office (KIPO) has been steadily rising. In just a single year, 2018, patent filings increased by nearly 5% over the previous year – and 3.6% of these (47,410 applications) were filed by international claimants. As with any country, South Korea has its own intellectual property standards and requirements. Here’s what you need to know to extend protection of your IP to South Korea. 

A single alphabet letter mark may face a bigger challenge in some jurisdictions than others. Take the example of Prince Sports International Company Ltd.’s stylized letter “P”. The Korean Trademark Act prevents registration of “a trademark that consists solely of a simple and common mark” under Article 33(1)(6). Prince Sports International Company Ltd., a Hong Kong-based company that manufactures sports goods, sought to register “P” as its trademark for jewelry, computers, online shopping mall businesses, etc. in Korea. It had already registered the same mark in the United States, Australia, and China, among other countries. In the United States, it is registered as Prince Sports, Inc.’s stylized word mark for tennis rackets. However, the Korean IP Office (KIPO) examiner rejected the application under the Korean Trademark Act, Article 33(1)(6)(a trademark that consists solely of a simple and common mark may not be registered) and Article 33(1) (7)(nondistinctive trademarks that do not serve as a source identifier for other reasons are also unregistrable).

IP rights face “a challenging future,” according to Christian Archambeau, the Executive Director of the EUIPO, who spoke to the media during the INTA Annual Meeting in Boston last month. In particular, he cited the challenges posed by Brexit, international cooperation, artificial intelligence (AI) tools and Blockchain, working in multiple languages, and the volume of applications. EUIPO (formerly OHIM) is the Office responsible for registering EU trade marks (EUTMs) and registered Community designs (RCD) in the European Union. But Archambeau, who became Executive Director in October last year, also emphasized its broader remit to support cooperation between offices in Europe and beyond, and to promote IP awareness, particularly among SMEs. In this respect, he said the Office is looking at “helping SMEs with services that help them and make sense to them,” although it cannot change fee levels, which are set by an EU Regulation.

Given the broad range of countries deploying UAVs and the large number of applications for UAVs, we took a look at patent data from the last 20 years (1997 to 2016) to determine whether any trends in UAV development could be identified. Our findings show some surprising results with regard to development and patenting of drone technology. In this analysis we focuses on the top-5 patent offices for obtaining UAV related patents, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) in China, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the European Patent Office (EPO), the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) in South Korea, and the Japan Patent Office (JPO).

The IP5 is the name given to a forum of the five largest intellectual property offices in the world that was set-up to improve the efficiency of the examination process for patents worldwide. The top five Patent Offices (IP5) have recognized this internationalization phenomenon and many directives have been introduced to facilitate cooperation between the patent offices… For example, the IP5’s Common Citation Document (CCD) application now allows access of up-to-date citation data of all five patent offices.

According to WIPO data, USPTO, EPO and KIPO are major ISAs for U.S. applicants; about 94% of intentional searches have been done by these three patent offices. U.S. applicants may consider the quality of search reports and cost of search fees as the most important factors in selecting an ISA. Search fees vary by ISA, for example, EPO’s rate is relatively high $2,125, USPTO’s rate is $2,080, and KIPO is well known to provide high quality earches with a relevantly competitive cost at $1,219.