1. Coffee shop chain Starbucks loses a suit filed against Morinaga Dairy Industry of Japan.

Patent Court Section 3 (Chief Judge Park, Hyung-Jun) ruled that two trademarks are not similar in a trademark registration nullity suit filed by Starbucks's U.S. head office against Morinaga Dairy Industry of Japan. The trademarks were judged to be different in their appearances since a mountain range and a long-hair woman with a crown on are drawn in their respective trademarks. Further, the perceptions of their images are deemed to be different when consumers look at the two trademarks because Morinaga's trademark is pronounced Mountain Rainier, whereas Starbucks' trademark means Starbucks coffee. 

The court ruled, it is difficult to deem that Morinaga has a purpose of taking advantage of the reputation of Starbucks' trademark, saying Morinaga has achieved average annual sales of 438.4 billion won every year up to 2014 since it recorded sales of 258.7 billion won in 2005 by selling beverages using the trademark.

2. It is forbidden for big business to request co-applicant patents for small-and-medium business technologies.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission decided to uproot incorrigible bossiness of big business's requesting co-applicant patents without contribution to the technologies developed by small-and-medium business subcontractors. The Commission will perform a field survey in order to uproot big business's usurpation of technologies and pass severe punishment for legal violations. 

The Commission announced that it has amended and is enforcing 'the examination guidelines for technical data provision request and appropriation.' It has specified as legal violations the action of a prime contractor such as a big business requesting a subcontractor for a co-applicant patent without any contribution to the development of the technology and the action of not returning technical data despite the expiry of the return date. 

According to The Fair Transactions In Subcontracting Act, such actions are illegal, but there have been many violations of subcontractor rights because either of the prime contractors or subcontractors were not aware of the fact that such actions are illegal. 

3. KIPO to provide support for the making of the fourth industrial revolution technologies into rights in early stage technology development.

The KIPO will begin preferential examination for patents and designs of the fourth industrial revolution technologies from this year. Also, it will increase the small-and-medium business patent annual fee exemption benefits from 30% to 50%. 

The KIPO announced that it has prepared intellectual property system support measures in such a manner so as to provide support for the making of the fourth industrial revolution technologies into rights in early stage technology development and strengthen the competitiveness of small-and-medium business intellectual properties. 

In order to provide support for the making of the fourth industrial revolution technologies into rights in early stage technology development, it will reduce the examination period from 16.4 months to 5.7 months by including seven industrial fields such as AI, Internet of Things (IoT) 80, 3D printing, autonomous driving, big data 78, cloud technology and intelligent robots as preferential patent examination objects.

The patent application for designs utilizing the fourth industrial revolution technologies will be included in the preferential patent examination objects from this month so as to reduce the examination period from five months to two months.

4. 'Small-and-Medium Business Intellectual Property Overseas Litigation Support' Agreement between Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-Sure) and KIPO.

The Korea Trade Insurance Corporation announced that it will conclude a business agreement between KIPO and K-Sure regarding support for and utilization of export insurance (trade insurance and intellectual property litigation insurance) for KIPO and small-and-medium and middle enterprises. The agreement is to make it easier to utilize export safety systems such as trade insurance and intellectual property right litigation insurance for Korean export companies that are defrauded of export proceeds or exposed to intellectual property right dispute risks such as patent litigation. 

The main contents of the agreement include: intellectual property right litigation insurance and expansion of trade insurance subscription benefits; preferential support for export companies with high job creation effects; strengthening of trade insurance and overseas intellectual property right protection consulting; and cooperation for utilization and activation of export support systems.