Source: KIPO
Date: 2012. 11. 6

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO, Commissioner Ho-won Kim) participated in the annual meeting of the TM5, a group of the five leading trademark offices, held in Barcelona, Spain, on October 30 and 31, where the TM5 members confirmed Korea as the venue of its 2013 annual meeting.
* TM5: The leading trademark offices of five advanced countries (Korea, United States, Japan, Europe, and China)

KIPO became an official member of the TM5 earlier this year and will host its annual meeting next year, which will provide the foundation for KIPO to lead the international debate on trademark systems.

The TM5 aims to address the issues that users are experiencing in using trademark and design systems, such as bad faith trademark registration. The group is also working on cooperative activities to improve trademark and design systems including the user-friendly trademark information system (TMview), enhanced image search system, harmonized goods and services identification list, etc.

The members agreed on the risk of bad faith trademark registration and will draw up joint measures to address this issue. In an effort to assist companies in obtaining information on registered trademarks of relevant markets and drawing up more effective trademark strategies, the TM5 will cooperate in expanding the scope of the TMview system, which currently covers EU members and a few other countries. It will also develop a website to provide information on its activities and ongoing collaborative projects to users.

In addition, the TM5 will pursue a “joint examination project” for trademark examiners of the five countries to share their examination results and harmonize examination practices. KIPO is currently conducting a pilot test for this project with the Office of Harmonization for the Internal Market (OHIM), the trademark and design office of the European Union.