1. No venture power of the world class unless technology hijacking is stopped.

 

Although efforts are being made to eradicate technology hijacking by large corporations, some SMEs, venture companies, and start-up awareness of technology protection still have a long way to go. Due to obsession to the number of patents, long application period, and low budget, it is said that a wide range of defective patent claims that are difficult to protect the technology are being mass-produced. In patent trials against large corporations, the loss rate of SMEs has exceeded 80% for several years. According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the loss ratio of small and medium enterprises in the patent trials is 49.2% in 2014, 83.3% in 2015 and 85.7% in 2016 and 84.6% last year.

There is also a need for SMEs' efforts to prevent technology leakage. According to the 'Investigation Report on the Status of Trade Secrets of Korean Companies' by the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the trade secrets were leaked by 68.0%, the most in proportion to the number of employees who is employed or retired. However, efforts to prevent such leakage are not really large.

 

2. A collaboration between KIPO and WIPO makes PCT electronic application procedure in easy by Onestop.

 

KIPO announced that it will start to develop a system to interoperate with 'e-PCT' (pct.wipo.int), which is a WIPO's electronic application and Teukheo-ro, which is an electronic patent application site (www.patent.go.kr). Once the two sites are linked, it will be possible to simultaneously prepare and submit an international patent application by accessing 'e-PCT' once.

At present, when applying for PCT by web method, it is needed to log in 'e-PCT' and prepare PCT application, save it to PC, log in 'Teukheo-ro' and submit the stored application, which is inconvenient. However, once the development of the system is completed, it will provide a one-stop international patent application service from January 1, 2019, which will be piloted in October. In addition, 'Teukheo-ro' will provide various PCT related information provided by WIPO.

 

3. The IP5 Patent Office will demonstrate cooperative examination of international patent applications.

At the IP5 Commission meeting held in New Orleans, USA on June 14, 2018, the chiefs of the five patent offices in Korea, USA, Japan, China and Europe and John Sandy, Deputy Director of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) attended. The IP5 chiefs agreed to pilot demonstration of cooperation for the PCT international patent application. This project, which will start on July 1 this year, is the first case where five IP5 offices jointly examine an application. This project, which will be a leading experiment to explore new possibilities of joint examination between countries, will contribute to improve the overall service of the patent system by securing the predictability of the patent early by improving the examination quality. The IP5 Patent Office decided to follow up on the normalization of the project after the two-year pilot period.

 

4. The Korea-Russia Intellectual Property Office agreed to jointly respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) said that on October 21st, Sung Yoon-mo, the head of the Korean Intellectual Property Office, met with Grigory Ivliev, the head of the Russian Intellectual Property Office, in Russia, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Patent Cooperation in cooperation with the two countries in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The Memorandum of Understanding includes cooperation measures to support innovation growth in the era of the fourth industrial revolution, such as the protection of intellectual property rights related to the new technology of the 4th Industrial Revolution, the application of patent administration of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

It is expected that the role of IPR will be further strengthened in the future for establishing future-oriented cooperation as the memorandum of understanding is concluded in Russia during the summit meeting and its contents are reflected in the joint declaration of the two countries.