A Policy of Korea Patent Examination of 2014

On January 2, 2014, the Korean Intellectual Property Office (the “KIPO”) announced a progress direction of 2014 patent examination policy, such as modification of patent examination guideline and amendment proceeding of Korean patent act and the like, to meet the demands of companies desirous of speedy examination through reduction of  period of time required for patent examination, to strengthen the support for rapidly obtaining patent abroad by Korean companies, to provide variously customized examination service and to protect creative ideas. 

The details are as follows:

1. The period of time for patent examination process is reduced to 11.7 months and the quality of patent examination is enhanced.

(1)     In 2014, the period of time for patent examination process-that is, the period from the date of request of examination to issuance of first office action- would be reduced to 11.7 months from 13.2 months on average in 2013.

(2)     The quality of examination would be improved by strengthening prior art search, such as more rigorous search for Chinese patent documents, establishment of search guide per each technological field, and holding examiner’s search contest, etc.

2. Strengthening of positive examination to communicate with customers throughout the entire process of examination

(1)     Since January 2014, with regard to patent application pertaining to the complicated technical field, the preliminary examination through the examiner’s interview with applicant will be conducted prior to full-scale patent examination.  This allows applicant to directly explain to the examiner the technical details and the examiner to inform applicant of detailed grounds for rejection, and accordingly accurate examination as well as voluntary amendment to avoid a rejection is expected to become feasible. 

  (2)    In addition, for patent application filed without appointed agent, the positive examination throughout the entire process thereof will be strengthened, e.g. by providing a guidance of how to amend the patent application to overcome the rejection.

3.  Collective examination of patent, utility model, trademark, design application related to a new product at the time when applicant wishes.

The collective examination system will be implemented, wherein the plurality of patent and utility model applications relating to new product of Venture Company or one-person company is prosecuted in accordance with the schedule of release of new product.   From April 2014, the collective examination will be carried out extending to trademark and design applications.

4. The expansion of subject countries covered by Patent Prosecution Highway (the “PPH”)

The number of subject countries covered by PPH will be increased to 21 countries in January 2014 from 14 countries in 2013.  In particular, the European Patent Office (the “EPO”) would be added to a group of subject countries, which is expected to be beneficial in obtaining early patent.

5. Strengthening of patent protection for computer program and architectural design creation.

(1)     In addition to current regulation that protects ‘a recording medium including computer program’ as patent, the guideline for patent examination will be amended during the first half of 2014 to be able to consider the computer program itself as subject matter of patent protection.

(2)     With regard to architectural design creations making it difficult to determine the requirements for patent such as inventive step and novelty due to spatial natures of the claimed element, the standards for determining patentability as to architectural design creations will be distinctively specified with revision and modification of examination guideline through complementing cases relating to judgment of patentability and interpretation of the claimed scope.  

6. Proceeding with amendment of Korea patent act

The amendments of patent act that have been submitted to the National Assembly in October 2013 and are currently under deliberation would be promoted to be able to pass the National Assembly in the first half of 2014.  These amendments allow applicant to file patent application written in foreign language and then submit Korean translations later. The amendments also include a provisional application system under which any documents disclosing an invention can be filed.