1. Regulations on abnormal practices such as trademark brokering or false indication of patents will be tightened

The KIPO will tighten regulations on abnormal practices such as an act of a trademark broker who first registers another person's trademark and then requests settlement to the bona fide trademark user or a false indication of registration of a rejected patent.

The KIPO will also positively prevent such practices made in foreign countries with regard to Korean businesses. The number of Korean businesses that have advanced into foreign countries on the Korean Wave is increasing, but along with it there are heightened concerns that they will be harmed by foreign trademark brokers' preoccupancy of trademarks.

According to the IP-DESK (Overseas Intellectual Property Center) located in Shanghai, China, a quick illustration is that overseas expansion of our small businesses was frustrated by a Chinese company that had filed 125 trademarks of Korean companies earlier.

2. Filing design applications will become much easier in Japan and America

The KIPO announced that America and Japan would start implementing the international design application system as of May 13^th pursuant to the Hague Agreement Relating to the International Registration of Industrial Designs (hereinafter Hague Agreement).

The Hague Agreement is a treaty for international registration of designs whereby a design can be registered in many countries by one application document. By using the international design application system, it is possible to reduce costs since it is not necessary to designate an application agent for each country and procedures can be undertaken in one language.

Also, since it is possible to process all the changes in the right of the registered design at one time, it is much more advantageous than filing applications directly in each and every country.

An example being, that when an applicant wants to file a design in America, he or she must attach an inventor statement and pay fees for application and registration for setting a right. However, when filing a design in Japan, the applicant should submit set of six drawings drawn according to a third angle projection and list the drawing names.

3. Get a U. S. patent quick and have a part of the examination fee exempted

The KIPO signed an MOU relating to implementation of the Cooperative Examination Program between the two countries at Korea-U.S. patent office high-level talks held at Suzhou, China on May 20^th.

When a cooperative examination to be implemented on September is made, and if the applicant who filed patent applications for the same invention with the two countries wants, the patent offices of the two countries will exchange prior art investigation reports and will perform preferential examination based on them.

Examination by sharing beforehand the results of investigation by the two countries can enhance the legal stability of patent rights and preferential examination can make it possible to obtain patent rights sooner.

In particular, America will exempt the applicant from the preferential examination application fee to a maximum of 4,000 dollars, so that the time and cost burdens are expected to decrease for Korean businesses that intend to obtain U. S. patents for entry into the market.

4. U. S. Congress will lower the intellectual property tax introduced by the 'Patent Box' system to raise IT and BT competitiveness

It was agreed to introduce a 'patent box' system whereby tax benefits (35% → 10%) are given to businesses related to intellectual property in order to enhance competitiveness of U. S. industry. This is to prevent U. S. businesses from transferring patent rights and production facilities to places with low tax rates such as Ireland and the U. K., facilitate the creation of high-income jobs within the country, and induce global businesses.

The Patent Box is a system for applying tax rates lower than general corporate taxes for the contribution created by intellectual property (IP) in the total net profits of the company. This is to give tax benefits for the promotion of research and development (R&D) of the company.