1. KIPO introduces a new design application system using only the English product name As of March

With the development of digital and multimedia technology, the KIPO has announced that it will establish a new design application system based on acknowledging the names of newly emerged English products and will take effect from March 1st. Currently, foreign characters that are not commonly named in Korean are not recognized as the name of the article, but in the future, even words composed only in English will be recognized as the name of a legitimate article when they are commonly used in the related design industry (e.g., Smart Watch). This is an improvement to ensure that design rights are easily and quickly secured by actively reflecting international standards and alleviating the inconvenience of applicants in the context of new products following the fourth industrial revolution.

2. KIPO implements the ‘Priority purchase recommendation project for excellent inventions’

The Korean Intellectual Property Office announced that it will implement the ‘Priority purchase recommendation project for excellent inventions’ in 2020. This is a project that recommends the purchase of “excellent inventions” of SMEs certified by the Korean Intellectual Property Office first of all to governments and local governments. The application qualification is a small or medium-sized business or individual business owner with intellectual property rights (patent, utility model, design), and must be able to produce products to which intellectual property rights are applied. If selected as an 'excellent invention', extra points are given to the business owner when applying for 'excellent product of the Public Procurement Service', which allows a voluntary contract for three years during the validity period of the certification. SMEs' interest has been increasing steadily, with the application rate for excellent invention recommendations increasing by 40% annually since 2017. In 2018, 303 applications and last year 433 applications were filed. There are more than 1,400 outstanding inventions selected from 1995 to last year, and the delivery amount reaches 180 billion won.

3. Design priority exchanges expanded to 10 countries

The KIPO announced that from the following month, design application priority certificate electronic exchange service (DAS, Digital Access Service) that was previously available only to the United States, China, and Japan will be expanded to 10 countries, including Norway, Spain, Australia, Canada, Chile, Georgia, and India.

Priority certificate is what is submitted to the patent office of the other country for retrospective recognition of the filing date as the prior filing date when the same content is subsequently submitted to another country based on the application to one country.

To use the DAS of the design application, if the WIPO access code for the Korean design application is issued from the patent office website 'Patent Road' and is applied to the patent office of the member country, enter the Korean application number, application date, and WIPO access code on behalf of the applicant Priority documents are exchanged online.

4. [Decision] The 'Drug Pillow' trademark can be registered as it cannot be concluded that there is a risk of harming good customs or public order

The second division of the Patent Court (Deputy Justice Je-Jeong Lee) ruled in favor of the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by media commerce company Blank Corporation (Company B) against the Commissioner of the Korean Intellectual Property Office to revoke the decision to reject registration of the 'drug pillow' trademark."

Company B filed a trademark called Drug Pillow in May 2017. The Korean Intellectual Property Office refused to register a trademark in October 2018, saying, "This application trademark may have a meaning or content that is inconsistent with the general consumer, and may harm public order or harm public order." The company has filed an appeal with the Patent Trial, but the Patent Trial has also dismissed Company B's claim. Accordingly, the company filed a lawsuit against the patent court, the patent court has canceled the decision of the Korean Intellectual Property Office, saying that there is no possibility for consumers to recognize the drug pillow as a 'pigment containing the drug'. According to the results of a survey conducted by Company B in Korea Gallup, more than 97% of the respondents accepted drug pillows as 'comfortable pillows that they want to keep sleeping'. The judiciary pointed out that "it is impossible to presume that the trademark 'drug' contains the name 'drug', and that there is a possibility of harming good customs or public order."