Source: KIPO
Date: 2012. 8. 14

- Strategic partnership between the patent offices of the Republic of Korea and the United States -

First ever policy discussions between the patent offices of the ROK and US to prevent patent disputes
Commissioner Ho-won Kim of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) visited Washington, D.C. on August 1 (Tues.) and 2 (Wed.) and met with David J. Kappos, Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and Randall R. Rader, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), to discuss measures to enhance bilateral patent cooperation.
In particular, Kim met with Kappos and Rader, the heads of the two U.S. patent authorities, to convey the concern of Korean companies over patent licensing and exploitation by non-practicing entities (NPEs)*, which has become a contentious issue with the exacerbating IPR disputes over smartphones and difficulties with the U.S. IPR system. The three discussed measures for multilateral cooperation to prevent patent disputes.
* Also called patent trolls, these refer to companies licensing patents in droves to make profits by filing patent infringement lawsuits without utilizing the patents.

Agreements forged during the ROK-US patent heads discussions

The two countries agreed that cooperation in the area of patents is important in raising bilateral trade from the ROK-US FTA. They agreed to sign a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding in the area of IPRs to build cooperative relations, share work, jointly use educational resources, and foster experts as part of efforts to prevent patent disputes.

The main points are as follows:

First, the two agreed to start joint research on standardizing the quality of patent examinations.

Based on the common acknowledgment that patents wrongly registered because of errors during patent examinations which are potential sources of patent disputes, the two countries agreed to start developing joint examination quality standardizing indicators.
Commissioner Kim said, “If examination quality is internationally standardized, we can prevent the registration of low quality patents and block a large number of patent disputes...”

Enhanced and expanded ROK-US patent examination cooperation

The heads of the ROK and US patent offices agreed to implement the Strategic Handling of Application Rapid Examination (SHARE) program by mutually using the examination results for patent applications cross submitted in both countries. The examination quality is expected to be enhanced and the examination cost cut for about 40,000 ROK-US cross applications submitted annually.
* For applications cross submitted to the ROK and US, the Office of Second Filing will use the examination results of the Office of First Filing through bilateral cooperation between the two patent offices.

KIPO also decided to join the “PPH*2.0” program, a second generation examination cooperation program currently being pursued for applicants of the U.S., Europe and Japan.
If the ROK-US PPH 2.0 program is implemented, the conditions for using the PPH will be largely alleviated, providing Korean applicants with more opportunities to get early foreign patent rights, including those of the United States, through a simple procedure.
* Should an examiner in one country decide to register a patent applied for in participating countries, the applicant may request early examination and registration through the PPH based on the first registration.

Other items agreed upon

To narrow the IPR gap between developed and developing countries, the two offices agreed to make use of their expert manpower and training organizations to raise global awareness of IPRs based on the IPR systems of the two countries harmonized through the ROK-US FTA. The two also agreed to hold a joint briefing of the ROK-US patent offices to explain the U.S. patent law system reformed in September 2011 for the first time in 60 years to Korean companies and user groups during the latter half of this year.

Meeting with the chief judge of CAFC

During the meeting between KIPO Commissioner Ho-won Kim and Chief Judge Randall R. Rader, Kim conveyed the difficulties faced by Korean companies in advancing into the U.S. market because of patent disputes in the U.S. and asked the court to create an environment for the proper use of patent rights.
Moreover, the two heads agreed to cooperate and jointly hold a ROK-US patent judges and experts meeting in 2013 in Korea.
Furthermore, Kim held a meeting on August 1 and 2 with Korean-American patent experts and businesspeople to express his support for them and enhance their network in order to help Korean companies prevent and respond to patent disputes.