1. The Korean Intellectual Property Office notifies the United States and Japan of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) examination within 3 months.

It appears that Korean companies will be able to complete the patent registration process in the United States and Japan within three months at the earliest. By quickly obtaining patent rights, it is possible to establish an effective intellectual property strategy and enter overseas markets.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office announced on the 30th that starting from the 1st of next month, through consultation with the United States and Japan, it will implement a ‘PPH improvement policy’ that sets the average period of examination procedures for ‘Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)’ applications to 3 months. PPH is an international cooperation program in which applications recognized as patentable in a specific country are quickly examined in another country.

In the case of priority examination through PPH, the first examination notification was previously sent within 4 months, but this period will be accelerated to within 3 months. In addition, the period for the next examination notification after the applicant submits the response will be adjusted to within 3 months. In the future, applicants who applied for PPH in the three countries of Korea, the United States, and Japan will be able to register a patent as early as three months after the priority examination decision.

2. Korean Intellectual Property Office begins online exchange of design priority certification documents with Brazil

Design protection for Korean companies entering Brazil is expected to be further strengthened. The Korean Intellectual Property Office announced on the 24th that it is providing an online exchange service (DAS) for priority documents when domestic applicants file designs in Brazil starting in August. Proof of priority The document is a document submitted to the patent office of the second country in order to have the application date retroactively recognized as the filing date of country 1 when applying for the same content in another country (country 2) based on an application filed in one country (country 1). Proof of priority. It is expected that applicant convenience will be greatly improved as there is no need to submit documents (paper documents) directly overseas, and securing rights locally will also become easier. Previously, to claim design priority in Brazil, you had to obtain a design priority certificate (paper document) from the Korean Intellectual Property Office and send it by international mail or submit it to the Brazilian Intellectual Property Office through a local agent. Not only was it cumbersome and expensive, but there was also the risk of missing the submission of documents.

Now, all that has to be done is to enter the DAS access code, domestic application number, and application date listed in the domestic application number notification on the Brazilian Patent Office application form and submit it. Afterwards, the Korean Intellectual Property Office delivers priority documents to the Brazilian Patent Office online on behalf of the applicant. Since the first online exchange of design priority documents with China in July 2018, the Korean Intellectual Property Office has expanded the target countries to 23 overseas patent offices. .Last July, we started online exchange of design priority documents with Lithuania, and we also plan to implement online exchange of design priority documents with Italy in September.

3. The Korean Intellectual Property Office “enforces the ‘Unfair Competition Prevention Act’ to protect good-faith users.”

The Korean Intellectual Property Office has amended the ‘Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act’ to allow a person who first used a trademark that is identical or similar to another person’s trademark (hereinafter referred to as a famous trademark) that is widely known in Korea without any unlawful purpose to continue using the trademark. It was announced on the 27th that the Unfair Competition Prevention Act (hereinafter referred to as the Unfair Competition Prevention Act) will come into effect from the 29th. According to the revised Unfair Competition Prevention Act, a person who first used a trademark that is identical or similar to another person's famous trademark is not considered an act of unfair competition even if he or she continues to use the trademark unless there is an unlawful purpose.

However, if a ‘famous trademark’ and a ‘previous user’s trademark’ coexist in the market, there is a risk that consumers may misunderstand or confuse the two trademarks as products of the same seller. To prevent this, the revised law allows holders of famous trademarks to request indications necessary to prevent misidentification and confusion from previous users. Even if a trademark was used first before the revision of the law, it is only applicable from the point when another person's identical or similar trademark becomes famous. The trademark could no longer be used. However, this pre-user protection regulation does not allow active exercise of rights, such as preventing others from using one's trademark. In order to have the trademark you use recognized as a positive right, it is essential to file an application with the Korean Intellectual Property Office and receive trademark registration before others. Also, from the 29th, the statute of limitations system for claims for prohibition against idea theft will be implemented. Accordingly, the statute of limitations for claims for injunction against unauthorized use of stolen ideas is clearly defined as 3 years from the date of recognition of the act, or 10 years from the date the act of unfair competition began. In addition, the subject of on-site investigation in the administrative investigation of unfair competition acts It will be expanded to include 'materials' that include not only documents, ledgers, and products, but also digital files, and it will be mandatory for trade secret original certification agencies to recover subsidies received from the government if they are used for other purposes.

4. Domestic intellectual property applications decreased by 1.4% in the first half of the year due to the impact of falling GDP growth rate, etc.

According to the 'Intellectual Property Statistics FOCUS (Volume No. 22)' recently announced by the Korean Intellectual Property Office and the Korea Intellectual Property Research Institute's Patent Statistics Center, the total number of domestic intellectual property applications in the first half of 2023 was approximately 260,000, down 1.4% compared to the same period last year.

The number of registrations increased by 11.7% to a total of 181,000. Looking at major rights, patents were the only ones to increase by 4.1%, while designs (-5.0%) and trademarks (-3.5%) both decreased, showing an overall decline. Applicants By type, domestic intellectual property rights applications by large corporations (7.3%) and others including universities and public institutions (7.8%) have increased, while medium-sized companies (-3.9%), small and medium-sized businesses (-3.8%), and domestic individuals (-0.4%) have increased. %) and foreigners (-6.3%) both decreased. In the case of large companies, despite the overall economic downturn, domestic patent applications are increasing, focusing on patent applications in new technology fields including semiconductors, electrical machinery/energy, digital communications, and computer technology (AI). Among the WIPO five major technologies, including electricity, chemistry, instruments, machinery, and others, the growth rate of patent applications in the electrical field, which includes many new technology fields, was 4.7%, compared to the remaining four major technology fields (chemicals 0.4%, instruments 1.7%, and machinery 0.1%). , showed a higher rate of increase compared to others (1.4%).