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June 2008 |  |
| | Adoption of the Customized Patent Application Examination Process
(Expedited/General/Grace-period)
The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) has decided to adopt a customized examination process for patent and utility model applications that will allow applicants to select the timing of their examination process. The gist of this new process is that (1) all applicants will be allowed to request an expedited examination, while (2) a grace period would be newly adopted as well.
Based on the KIPO statistics as of 2008, it takes approximately 10 months for the first office action to be issued on an application after an examination is requested. This would change after the customized examination process becomes effective, and the KIPO expects it to take approximately 16 months for those that did not take advantage of either expedited process or grace-periods.
The KIPO plans to make a preliminary announcement on the amendment of Patent Act Enforcement Decree and Regulations in order to effectuate this customized examination process. Further, the KIPO will set up a public hearing in order to collect opinions and it eventually projects to have the process begin as of September 30, 2008. |
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| (1) |
Who is qualified for the current expedited examination process:
An application that is being infringed upon by a third party, practiced by the patent applicant, and filed by a venture company and more are now eligible for expedited examination upon request. |
| (2) |
Revised qualification on who can apply for expedited examination:
Any applicant who attaches a prior art search report prepared by a KIPO certified patent search organization will be allowed to qualify for the expedited examination in addition to the current criteria. Four organizations are currently certified by KIPO including the KIPRIS. |
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| (1) |
The grace period will only apply to regular patent applications, thus, it will not be applied to divisional and converted applications. Also, the grace period will not apply in the case when notice of allowance or refusal has been notified to the applicant before such grace period is requested. |
| (2) |
The grace period can be requested any time within 6 months after the examination request date. |
| (3) |
The grace period can be selected by the applicant within a range of 18 months after the examination request date and within 5 years after the application filing date. |
| (4) |
Withdrawal of the grace period request and modification of the grace period can be made at any time within 2 months from the grace period request date. |
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