1. Korean Intellectual Property Office "Three-dimensional trademark application, possible with only one sample"

Application of three-dimensional or positional trademarks has been simplified. When an applicant files the application for a three-dimensional or positional trademark in Korea, it is possible to submit only one drawing which can clearly express the characteristics of the sample. Major countries such as the United States, the European Union (EU), and Japan are accepting a single drawing when an applicant is filing the application for a three-dimensional or positional trademark. Hence in the future, when an applicant from these countries apply for a three-dimensional or positional trademark in Korea, they can use the same one-page sample that was submitted to their country.

The deadline for submitting samples of sound and smell trademarks (submitted via mail) for international trademark registration applications was also extended from 1 month to 3 months. Therefore, applicants have spare time when submitting samples via mail.

Moreover, for an identification in trademark-related procedures, an applicant can use the registered seal or signature which is used in the process of patent applicant code issue without submitting a separate seal certificate.

2. Focused on supporting patent strategies for 100 companies such as in the “Big 3” field'

Through patent analysis, the Korean Intellectual Property Office derives Technologies for the promising 'big 3 industry' such as future vehicles, bios, and system semiconductors. And it supports intellectual property-based research and development (IP-R&D) to more than 100 companies in the field of new growth engines.

And KIPO establishes a patent examination system to grant rights in the rapid and strong Big 3 field. Also it expands support for overseas patent expenses for SMEs.

KIPO actively applies preferential patent examination for industrial fields such as hydrogen vehicles, autonomous vehicles, intelligent semiconductors, innovative new drugs, and customized healthcare.

It supports IP comprehensive services for small and medium-sized startups in the big three fields. It supports the cost of securing foreign intellectual property rights such as funding to invest in overseas IP applications. And it helps creation of standard patents in new technology fields.

Overseas Intellectual Property Center (IP-DESK) will be newly open in emerging markets such as Russia and Mexico, where Korean companies are increasing. In the case of intellectual property disputes, it will support legal counseling and dispute response in the location.

3. Korea ranked first in the world in the evaluation of the 'Bloomberg Innovation Index' thanks to R&D investment and patent activities.

In the '2021 Bloomberg Innovation Index' released by Bloomberg News, Korea ranked first among 60 countries with 90.49 points. For the nine years the Bloomberg Innovation Index was released, Korea ranked second last year, and ranked first seven times.

The Bloomberg Innovation Index ranks the scores by summing up the scores in a total of 7 items, including R&D concentration, manufacturing added value, productivity, high technology concentration, education efficiency, research concentration, and patent activity.

Specifically, Korea got high score in the following evaluation criteria such as R&D concentration (2nd place), manufacturing added value (2nd place), productivity (36th place), high technology concentration (4th place), education efficiency (13th place), research concentration (3rd place), patent activity (1th place) etc. According to the 2019 R&D activity survey, Korea's ratio of R&D expenditure compared to gross domestic product (GDP) was 4.64%, ranking 2nd in the world and 5th in absolute scale of R&D expenditure.

This year, Singapore (87.76 points) was in second place, Switzerland (87.60 points) was in third place, and Germany (86.45 points) was in fourth place. The United States ranked 11th, Japan 12th, and China 16th.

4. Korean Intellectual Property Office introduces artificial intelligence (AI) for trademark and design examination.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office announced that it would complete the development if a trademark and design image search system to which artificial intelligence is applied and use it for examination and trial.

Existing method requires visual search of thousands of images. By innovating and with the opening of this AI search system, examiners can significantly shorten the time spent in searching.

In order to build an AI-based image retrieval system, the Korean Intellectual Property Office used more than 2 million trademarks and design images as AI learning data, and conducted demonstration, implementation, and test operation for two years.

The image search system displays the search results in order of similarity by comparing the applied image and the previously registered images.

In particular, it is noteworthy that it is possible to search a partial image in an image in which multiple shapes are combined. For example, when searching for a bag image, similar image of the bags appearance, printed logos and characters on the bag can be searched at once. In addition, AI automatically recommends the classification of trademarks and designs and supports the designation of classification codes.

Meanwhile, Last year the Patent Office completed applying AI techniques in written document computerization, foreign patent translation, patent reference numeral recognition. This year it is under R&D procession for Chatbot(customer counseling robot), intelligent patent search and automatic classification.