1. KIPO expands cooperation with 10 ASEAN countries for intellectual property rights

For this, the KIPO held a bureau-director level meeting in the form of ASEAN+1 in Vietnam and at Vientiane, Laos, on the 16^th of last month, and proposed a variety of cooperation fields including preferential examination on patent applications filed by Korean companies, the sharing of information on execution and sanctions, intellectual property laws, and education consulting. The ASEAN countries also wanted the sharing of experiences and knowhow of intellectual property rights and economic development, and showed a high interest in education and training, intellectual property right utilization policies, and an intellectual property recognition enhancement campaign.

Since it launched at the end of 2015 the AEC (ASEAN Economic Community) advocating an EU of Asia, the ASEAN was reborn as a post-China affiliation by forming a huge single market with a population ranking of third in the world, a GDP ranking of second in the world, and a world fourth largest commodity trade.

2. KIPO signs a business agreement contract with Daejeon District Prosecutors' Office to strengthen the capability for response to crimes of intellectual property right infringement.

Recently, as patent disputes continue to increase, the KIPO (commissioner Choi Dong-kyu) and the Daejeon District Prosecutors' Office (Prosecutor Ahn Sang-don) agreed to build a business cooperation system for strengthening capabilities to respond to crimes of intellectual property right infringement. The major cooperation tasks are the sharing of the examination and judgment data of patent rights, utility model rights, design rights, trademark disputes and information regarding investigation initiation, the sharing of related data such as knowledge, information, and documents necessary for education of intellectual property right investigators, the building of intellectual property education infrastructure for reinforcing investigation expertise, the building of a cooperation system in response to new kinds of crime such as online infringement of intellectual property rights, and professional manpower support for speedy resolution of intellectual property right disputes. As a result of signing the business cooperation contract, it is expected that the handling of intellectual property infringement crime cases will be expedited. When the Daejeon District Prosecutors' Office notifies the Intellectual Property Tribunal of investigation initiation information, the Intellectual Property Tribunal will handle the related trial cases promptly and provide examination and judgment data as well.

3. The commissioner of the KIPO says it will help 570 IT companies with overseas expansion

The KIPO formulated an implementation plan for providing a reliable examination and judgment service, creating new markets and jobs with intellectual property, and business innovation support through protection and reinforcement of intellectual property, in order to build a strong and flexible intellectual property system, which is a core element of the fourth industrial revolution.

It plans to create new markets and jobs with strong intellectual property by expediting overseas expansion through concentrated promotion of 570 global IP companies. It will provide concentrated support to intellectual property (IP)-research and development (R&D) strategies in linkage with 9 national strategy projects and 8 smart technologies of the Ministries of Industry and Future Planning. It also plans to activate 'IP financing' for each growth step for start-up businesses holding excellent patents.

4. KIPO will support 6.8 billion won in 'intellectual property creation and utilization support projects' for universities and research institutes

The KIPO announced that this year it will invest 6,840 million won so that excellent patent technologies of universities and public research institutes developed by government support can be transferred to and utilized by businesses for implementation of 5 projects: an invention interview and public knowledge property utilization support project; a product unit patent portfolio building project; a patent management expert operation support project; a government research and development patent design support project; and a public agency-owned patent diagnosis support project.

The KIPO will select promising patent technologies to support technological marketing, and provide additional support for patent validation and commercialization strategies for the purpose of patent technology transfer and commercialization promotion by bundling up patents owned by universities and research institutes into products as wanted by businesses.